General Information

 

After Hours

For issues emerging after-hours, a practitioner is on call during evenings and weekends for established patients. For immediate emergencies, please call 911 and not CFP after hours. Also note that the after-hours service is not for prescription refill requests, please call during office hours.

During office hours, medical questions or concerns of established patients (those who have been seen at CFP within the last year) are typically answered the same day.

 

Appointments

Established patients with an acute problem can usually be seen on the same day. Please call early in the day for availability with Elliot Trester, MD, Theresa Pugh, MD, Eva Montes, PA-C, Christine Chen, DO or Jennifer Ziedonis, MD. Call us at 512-371-9260. To view our pricing click here.

For acupuncture appointments, please call Peggy Ghorbani directly at 512-294-6895.

 

Cancellation Policy

Please plan to give CFP a minimum of 24 hours notice if you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment so that we don’t have to charge a cancellation fee. The cancellation fee is not intended to be punitive, but rather an encouragement to give us this notice so that we have time to give the appointment to someone else. We allot longer patient visits than the average practice and we don’t double book appointments to protect against “no shows”.

 

Insurance

Please be aware that we do not accept any insurance plans, Medicare, or Medicaid, although you can use your health savings account dollars at our practice. By not being dictated to by third-party billing, we are able to provide the personal, high-quality care we believe to be unmatched in Austin.

CFP provides a print-out receipt that includes the necessary insurance coding for submission to the insurance provider for out-of-network expenses, with the exception of Medicare and Medicaid.

 

Lab Hours

Labs are by appointment only. Established patients need to call for a lab appt after labs have been ordered for them by one of our practitioners; new patients must be seen by a CFP practitioner first, except for those wanting only the STD Screening, in which case, call for a lab appt.

 

Lab Work Preparation

If your practitioner ordered blood work for an annual/physical exam, please do not eat after midnight the night before your draw. You may drink water, black coffee or plain tea.

Avoid alcohol intake the day prior to your blood draw—alcohol causes dehydration, which can lead to a more challenging blood draw. Please hydrate well by drinking plenty of water the day before your lab work.

Other common preparation for bloodwork:

  • If you are using estrogen and/or progesterone cream, troche, lozenges, drops or tablets, and are testing these levels: It is optimal to have blood drawn 4-6 hours after taking your prescription. If you usually take this medication at night, skip the night before and take it in the morning.
  • If you are using testosterone and are checking these levels: Please do not use within 24-30 hours of your blood draw.
  • If you are using Armour or Cytomel thyroid medication: Please do not take these medications 6 hours before the blood draw for thyroid levels. Levothyroxine, Levoxyl, or Synthroid can be taken prior to lab work.

 

Laboratory/Radiology/Biopsy Results

Laboratory, radiology and biopsy results will be phoned to you unless your practitioner asked you to make an appointment, at which time he or she will review results with you. Routine results can take two weeks for notification by phone or patient portal. Send-out or special requests can take longer.

If you do not hear from us within those time frames, please contact our office.

 

Prescription Refills and Medication Follow-up

For refills on medication(s), call the pharmacy and request a refill even if your prescription says you have no refills left. The pharmacy will fax your CFP practitioner for authorization of the refill.Please allow a minimum of 24 hours for the process to be completed.

For medication follow-up, your practitioner will tell you how often follow up is needed in order to continue to receive medication, and this is based on your specific medical history and diagnosis. All hormone medication and medications for chronic diseases are followed at a minimum of every 3-6 months, so please be aware you may need to schedule an appointment with your practitioner before securing a refill.