Patient Information

Appointments (please call 310-659-0714 for scheduling)

We pride ourselves on preventing serious cardiac conditions as much as possible. But, as cardiologists we still help to take care of patients with serious and complicated medical conditions. We also think that your time is quite valuable and try to disprove the reputation that doctors have for keeping patients waiting. We do our best to predict how long each patient will need with the doctor during their visit and we leave openings in our schedule to accommodate unexpected problems as they arise. Despite this, as cardiology is a field prone to life and death emergencies requiring us to prioritize care, there still can occasionally be delays in the schedule and ask for your patience and understanding if and when they occur. In rare instances, it might be necessary to cancel and/or reschedule an appointment with little or no notice. We realize that should you ever find yourself as the one in need of our emergency care at the hospital or office or extra time with the doctor, you would be grateful that others understood while waiting. We appreciate your understanding and will try to accommodate your needs as best as we can.

We encourage you, during office visits, to ask for a full explanation of your medical problems. Do not leave with unanswered questions. You have a complete right to ask for all that we can answer concerning your condition. Please do understand however, that for more complex cases, it might be necessary to schedule a follow-up appointment to discuss other non-urgent questions at a later time.

In Case of Emergency or Life-Threatening Medical Condition: call 911 or immediately go to the closest emergency room. The hospital will contact our physician on call.

Appointment Cancellation Policy

How many times have you attempted to schedule an appointment with your doctor or for a test in the office, only to find out that the schedule is full? Unfortunately, some patients are unable to keep scheduled appointments without calling us or canceling. This problem decreases our ability to see patients like you, when you need to see your doctor urgently.

If you need to reschedule or cancel an appointment, we certainly will understand, but please kindly notify us at least 24 hours in advance to avoid an administrative fee.

This policy applies to all appointments to see your doctor or for an in-office test. In particular, patients scheduled for a nuclear cardiology test will be charged $300, and patients scheduled for an echocardiogram (including stress echo) will be charged $200 unless the appointment is cancelled or rescheduled at least 24 hours before the test. Insurance does not cover these costs.

Remember that a no show appointment (or calling at the last minute to cancel or reschedule an appointment) takes an opportunity away from those who need to see their doctor or have a test done urgently. And maybe next time, that will be you. If you are going to be late for an appointment, please call as soon as possible and we will try to accommodate you as best as we can.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Office Hours

Our office is open on Monday - Friday 8:30am to 5:00pm, closed for lunch from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm. Our last patient appointments are scheduled at 4:30 pm daily. We do occasionally have Saturday appointments available for nuclear stress testing for your convenience.

Holidays

We are closed on most major holidays including:

New Year’s Day	Rosh Hashanah
Memorial Day	Yom Kippur
Labor Day	Thanksgiving
July 4th	Christmas

Of course, whether on weekends, nights or holidays, a doctor on call is always available for emergencies when the office is closed.

Preparing for Your First Visit

New Patients

Both doctors accept new patients. However, new patients for Dr. Urman generally need to be referred by their current physician. As a new patient, if time allows, you will be mailed (or e-mailed or faxed) a package of forms to be filled out and informational about our practice (all of which is also available here on our web site). Included is a patient registration information sheet and health history questionnaire which can also be downloaded below. When time allows, ideally these should be reviewed and completed prior to your appointment so that you may take the necessary time to fully complete these forms. One of the most important parts of the medical record your doctor keeps about you is a health history concerning your past and present health problems, and any personal information which might affect the state of your health. Your answers will be treated confidentially as will all parts of your visit.

The questionnaire is not intended to be a substitute for your doctor spending time with you. Completing the forms as fully as you possibly can will allow the doctor to spend more time with you on subjects that both you and he feel are most important. In addition, it will better allow the doctor to get to know you personally.

DO NOT FORGET: Bring your insurance card and any other third-party payor information with you to our office. Even if we are not contracted providers with your insurance plan, if you wish for us to provide courtesy billing to them for you to be reimbursed, you must have these with you.

Bring the completed patient registration information sheet and health history questionnaire with you to our office at the time of your appointment.

Bring any old or prior medical records that you can or arrange to have them sent to us prior to your appointment. This is especially important if you are seeing the doctor in consultation or in second opinion.

For more information on preparing to visit a cardiologist, please click here

Patient Forms

These pre-visit forms will help you consolidate your medical history in preparation for your visit to our office. Please print, fill out and bring these forms with you when visiting our office.

Note: These forms are designed solely for your convenience, to help utilize your time with us most productively. If you have any problems or questions please contact us here.

Click Here to download ALL New Patient Forms.

Individual Forms: (Coming Soon)

Please note that all forms marked with an asterisk (*), must be completely filled out and signed prior to the patient being seen by the doctor.

New Patient Introduction
New Patient Instructions
Patient Registration Form*
Health History Questionnaire*
Health History – Review of Systems*
Notice of Privacy Practices*
Cancellation Policy
Prescription Refill Policy
Authorization to Release Medical Records

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If you do not have a copy of Acrobat Reader you can get one for free by clicking on the icon 'Get Acrobat® Reader'. This will take you to Adobe's website and enable you to download the Acrobat program to your computer.

Pharmacy and Prescription Refill Policy

As compliance with a physician’s prescribed medical care is crucial for having the best odds to stay healthy, we want to help our patients with prescription refills. We have numerous calls and faxes throughout the day from pharmacies for our patients’ prescription needs and we want to ensure the accuracy of the prescription information while handling requests in as efficient a manner as possible. Pharmacies or discount/mail-away medication programs must call, fax or send to us their requests (or the patient may bring in the request to be faxed directly from our office).

Good medical practice (as well as state law) dictates that patients be re-evaluated on a periodic basis prior to prescribing or refilling medications. This means that prescriptions cannot be indefinitely refilled without reevaluation in person here in our office at whatever time-period your condition dictates. You may be asked to schedule a follow-up visit when you or your pharmacy requests a refill. If this is the case, we will make every effort within reason to assure that your medication regimen is not interrupted or that your health is not put at risk, however you must keep your follow-up appointment.

So that patients can get their medications in a timely fashion, there are some things our patients can do to work with us.

Watch medication refill dates – ask for your refills two to four business days before they run out (or several weeks if sending away for your prescriptions).

Plan ahead! Last minute requests can cause problems that can results in a delay in getting your medications.

Call your pharmacy directly to ask for refills. We can only accept fax requests from pharmacies to ensure accuracy of your prescriptions. Except in specific situations, we need to hear from them as we cannot routinely call them.
Ask pharmacies to fax us your request. We will return your approvals within two (2) business days. Thus, please anticipate when your medications will run out and plan accordingly.

NOTE: We strongly recommend that you ask your pharmacy to fax us requests immediately after you inform them of the need and then confirm with the pharmacy that your prescription is ready. We cannot be responsible for pharmacies that themselves wait until the last minute to fax us requests.

Please try not to go to the pharmacy and wait for them to call us for a refill approval without two business days’ advance notice. If you call at the last minute and your doctor is not immediately available, you may not get immediate service on routine refill requests.
We do not routinely approve generic substitutions as requested by medical insurance plans or formularies. If you do wish to consider a generic alternative to save money, in most cases we will not have a medical concern against doing so. Please have your pharmacy or prescription plan contact us in writing for the generic alternative stating that it is at your request after you have personally notified us that this is your preference. By the same token, if we feel a generic alternative is a reasonable substitution to a brand medication, and you have a general preference for “brand” medications without a specific medical reason not to take generic, we will not ask for a pre-authorization for you. If your plan asks you to pay more for a brand medication than for generic, unless there is a unique and specific problem in your situation, you certainly have the right to pay the difference.
We do not generally do “pre-authorizations” for medications. Our belief is that the physician will advise the medication that they feel is best suited for you in your condition. Any changes to medications that you are already on that are requested by your insurance company or formulary plan is between you and your plan. Obviously these plans make these requests to save their companies and stockholders money but the time it would take for us to routinely deal with this is generally not reimbursed. When first starting a new medication, if an alternative brand in the same class of medication or a generic alternative is less expensive, please do ask us at that time if we think the alternative is reasonable and we will inform you of the potential pros and cons. Ultimately, we recommend our preference based on our medical assessment of your condition and you have the option to make changes or use alternatives at your own risk. We will try to help you come to a reasonable conclusion about what might work best for you.


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