Office Policies

Office Hours
Our office is open Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Friday from 8:30 a.m. until noon. We close from noon until 1 p.m. for lunch Monday through Thursday. Appointment availability may vary because of scheduled and non-scheduled surgical procedures.

Appointments
We understand your time is valuable. We do not overbook appointments and we make every effort to remain on schedule. We ask our patients to prompt and assist us by staying on time. If you are more than 20 minutes late, your appointment may be cancelled in fairness to the patients who have arrived for their appointments on time. Please be very clear about what your needs are when scheduling your appointment so we may allow enough time for your visit.
 
Due to the nature of gynecology practices, Dr. Thaxton may be called out suddenly for emergencies. We will make every effort to notify you as soon as possible if your appointment will be delayed or cancelled. We appreciate your patience and understanding when these situations arise. Rest assured that you will never be rushed through an appointment because we are running behind.
 
When making appointments, please leave us a phone number where you will reachable just before the visit. We also recommend that you call the office for a status check before leaving for your appointment. Please notify us if you are not able to keep your appointment. A 24-hour notice is required and very much appreciated. This enables us to contact someone who may need that appointment time.
 
Telephone Messages
Please feel free to call the office anytime during regular business hours for questions or concerns. We make every effort to return your call that day, but calls after 3 p.m. may need to be returned the following day. Please make every effort to be available when we call back.

Non-urgent and routine messages are typically returned by the staff after patient care hours and are answered according to medical priority. Throughout the day, Dr. Thaxton and his staff will return more urgent phone messages (based on medical priority). General messages left after 3 p.m. may be answered the following day.

After hours, phones are answered by our answering service and the physician on call will be paged. Please limit your calls to medically urgent calls only. Although unlikely, if a physician has not returned your call within 30 minutes, please call again. If you are expecting a return call from the office and you have call blocking on your telephone, please UNBLOCK your phone. Our office staff and physicians cannot call back to blocked lines or contact you if your phone mailbox is full.  

Prescription Refill Requests
Please ask your pharmacy to fax requests for refills to 706-922-3217. If the pharmacist has directed you to contact our office, please be sure to have the pharmacy name, phone number and prescription number of the previous refill.

Requests for prescription refills are only done during office hours and may take up to 48 hours to complete. Please use this online request form or call us four days in advance before you run out of your medication.
 
Medical Information
All of our staff members are held up to the highest confidentiality standards. Your medical information will remain completely confidential unless we receive a signed written release from you. Information WILL NOT be shared with your spouse or family members unless specific authorization is obtained to do so.
 
If you require your records be sent for medical purposes, we can forward records to your physician or other medical facility. This will be done free of charge for continuity of care, however, records copied for patient, insurance companies, or for any other reason, will be charged a fee.

Payment and Insurance
Payments for co-pays and fees for services rendered are due at the time of service. We accept cash, check, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover, as well as debit/check cards.

You are responsible for knowing your insurance limitations and policies. Please contact your insurance company to be assured that you have coverage for the services you will be receiving.

If your insurance requires a referral or authorization for your visit and you do not have this WITH YOU at the time of service, your appointment may need to be rescheduled. Be sure to contact your Primary Care Physician after scheduling your appointment to allow plenty of time for the authorization/referral process.

Please be sure to bring a current copy of your insurance card to EACH visit. We cannot submit a claim to your insurance company without specific information listed on the card.

We are happy to submit your bill to the insurance company; however, ultimately the payment is your responsibility.

Test Results

You will be notified by phone by our physician or nurse of any abnormal laboratory study results. Normal laboratory reports will be discussed with you upon your follow-up appointment or you may call for the results if you would like to know them before your follow up visit. Results for blood work and radiology can take a week or more to be returned to us. Pap smear results can take as many as 10-14 days to reach our office.