We're Here to Help You Save Money
Do you have a high-deductible insurance plan? Are you uninsured, self-insured, or part of a health-sharing program?
If you answered ‘yes’ to either of those questions, Trinity Heart and Vascular Group can help you save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your outpatient cardiac testing.
We invite you to review our ‘Price Comparison’ Chart, as it shows you approximately how much money you can save at our facility (compared to how much hospitals and insurance plans charge).
In addition to reviewing that chart, we highly encourage you to read the other sections on this page, as this information could save you a significant amount of money on your overall healthcare needs (not just cardiovascular).
If you’re interested in seeing the chart and reading helpful information on how to save money with a high-deductible insurance plan, you can simply keep scrolling through this page.
As you scroll, the blue ‘Price Comparisons’ button will stay at the top of the screen so that you can jump to the chart at any time.
Approximate Read Time for Entire Page: 12 minutes (excluding FAQ section)
Table of Contents
Why You Should Care About Your Healthcare Prices.
Now that inflation is in full force, many people are wisely choosing to research all of their purchases ahead of time to find the lowest price. Doing so can save hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and that’s a big deal!
Here’s something to ponder: If you shop around to compare prices for household appliances, car purchases, home repairs, and/or groceries, then why should your medical services be any different?
It’s vitally important to do your research when it comes to your healthcare costs, as it could save you a significant amount of money — and the money that you save on healthcare costs can be put toward other household needs.
If you were looking for a new car, and you did your homework by getting quotes from four local dealerships that all offered the exact make and model that you needed, you would choose the dealership that offered the lowest quote.
In the same way, it’s important to shop around for the best prices on outpatient medical testing, especially if you have a high-deductible insurance plan.
You may be wondering, “Why is that? If I have health insurance, shouldn’t all of my office visits and tests be covered?”
The reality is, if you have a high-deductible plan, you do not automatically have full coverage for all healthcare costs. In fact, that’s true of most insurance plans (regardless of whether the deductible is high or low).
Even though you pay a monthly premium for your health insurance plan, in most cases, you still have to pay additional fees for ‘in-network’ medical services.
What are the Terms of Your Health Insurance Plan?
Since most insurance plans require you to pay certain amounts out of your own pocket for medical services (in addition to your monthly premium payments), it’s vitally important to know the amounts of your:
- Deductible
- Co-pays
- Out-of-pocket maximum
- Co-insurance
It’s important to know how much money you have to pay upfront before you receive full coverage for your in-network medical services. It’s also imperative to know which providers and facilities are considered ‘in network’ and ‘out of network’ if you’re going to use your insurance plan.
Most high-deductible insurance plans put all office visits and medical tests toward the in-network deductible and out-of-pocket maximum. This means that you have to pay a certain amount of money out of your own pocket before you receive any coverage from your insurance company.
It’s important to read the fine print in your plan, as there are many different rules regarding payments. For example, even if you have copays for office visits — such as a $75 ‘specialist’ copay — the copay only covers the office visit with the specialist, not the testing and/or procedures that come out of that office visit.
Tests and procedures go toward your deductible, and are paid in addition to your office visit copay.
Why is it necessary to know these things? Because most people are shocked when they receive medical bills that state they owe thousands of dollars for outpatient medical testing.
Many are caught off guard because they assume that if they go to an ‘in-network’ provider, that they will only be charged a small amount, or not charged anything at all.
A good way to avoid those unwanted surprises, is to be equipped with knowledge about the way that insurance coverage truly works.
We believe that knowledge is power, and we want to share with you how all of this relates to your outpatient testing needs, and how it affects your hard-earned money.
If you’re already familiar with the terms ‘deductible,’ ‘co-pay,’ ‘co-insurance,’ and ‘out-of-pocket maximum,’ and if you know the ins and outs of your insurance plan, that’s great! You may want to go straight to the price comparison chart.
However, if you’re not entirely sure what all of these definitions mean (which is completely understandable), and if you don’t know exactly how they apply to your plan, we kindly invite you to keep reading this section.
We’ll explain how high-deductible plans generally work, and how you could end up paying more money for your medical tests by using your in-network benefits. It seems like that wouldn’t be possible, but it is!
Let’s look at this hypothetical example.
Before we dive into the example, let’s quickly lay the framework. In regard to insurance coverage, it’s important to note that when insurance companies use the term ‘high-deductible plan,’ it’s somewhat misleading. Why is that?
It leads people to believe that once they reach their deductible amount, that they’ll have full coverage for the rest of their medical bills. In reality, the ‘out-of-pocket maximum’ is the total amount you have to pay in any given calendar year.
For most insurance plans, once you meet your deductible, you earn partial coverage from your insurance company for any additional bills. Once you meet your out-of-pocket maximum, then you usually earn full coverage for any additional bills.
It may still sound like a good deal, but does it help you spend less money on medical bills? For outpatient testing, it often doesn’t.
Here’s an example:
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- Let’s say that Jane Smith has an insurance plan with a $4,500 deductible, a $7,000 out-of-pocket maximum, and 40% co-insurance.All of her specialist office visits, medical tests, and procedures go toward the deductible (i.e., she doesn’t have copays for those things). This means she has to put $4,500 of her own money toward all of her medical bills before her insurance company will start to provide partial coverage.
- In March, while Jane is having her yearly physical with her primary care doctor, she mentions that she’s occasionally been having shortness of breath, and is referred to an in-network cardiologist.
- Jane doesn’t have a specialist copay, and is billed $350 through her insurance for the new-patient office visit, which goes toward her deductible.
- During the office visit, the cardiologist conducts a comprehensive echocardiogram, and Jane is billed $400 for that test through her insurance plan.
- After reviewing the results of the echocardiogram, the cardiologist recommends a Dobutamine nuclear stress test. Jane schedules the stress test and has it done, and through her insurance plan, she is billed $3,750.
- At this point, since all three of her cardiology-related bills are put toward her deductible, her total has come to $4,500. Since her deductible is $4,500, this means Jane has to pay the total amount of those bills.
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- Now that Jane has paid $4,500 for her cardiac office visit and two tests, this means she has met her deductible.
- After formulating a diagnosis, the cardiologist recommends that she come back in six to nine months to get another echocardiogram to reassess her heart muscle function.
- In November, Jane has a follow-up appointment and gets another comprehensive echocardiogram. She is charged $250 for the follow-up appointment and $400 for the echocardiogram through her insurance, and her co-insurance percentage is applied.
- Since Jane has met her deductible, any amount that goes beyond that (such as the cost for her follow-up appointment and second echo) is paid in part by her insurance company in the form of co-insurance.Co-insurance applies to the difference between the out-of-pocket maximum and the deductible. In Jane’s case, the difference is $2,500: $7,000 (‘Out-of-Pocket Maximum’ Amount) – $4,500 (‘Deductible’ Amount) = $2,500 difference.
- Her 40% co-insurance percentage is applied to any medical costs that come after she meets her deductible, and until she reaches her $7,000 out-of-pocket maximum.
- This means that she will pay 40% of the cost of any medical bills moving forward, and her insurance company will pay 60%. This will continue until she pays $2,500 out of her own pocket for any additional medical bills she may have.
- In this scenario, she would pay $260 for the second echocardiogram and follow-up visit since the total for both of those is $650, and she has to pay 40% of that cost.
- Once Jane meets her out-of-pocket maximum, she would then have full coverage for in-network services that are approved by her insurance company. (Full coverage, meaning, that they will cover all of the costs for additional medical claims that are submitted by ‘in-network’ providers).
- Before that happens, it means that Jane would have to pay $7,000 of her own money in one calendar year before her insurance company would provide full coverage for any additional medical bills. That amount is in addition to her monthly premium.
- Let’s say her monthly plan premium is $475 a month. That’s $5,700 a year in premiums, plus $7,000 for her out-of-pocket maximum, which means that she has to pay $12,500 a year in order to obtain 100% coverage for in-network medical services.
Are you exhausted after reading all of that? We don’t blame you for feeling that way.
Navigating insurance coverage is complicated, and to make matters worse, some insurance plans don’t follow the norm. For example, in rare cases, certain plans don’t apply the deductible to the out-of-pocket maximum.
For example, if Jane’s $4,500 deductible wasn’t applied to her out-of-pocket maximum, that means she would have to pay $11,500 of her own medical bills (the $4,500 deductible plus the $7,000 out-of-pocket maximum), as well as $5,700 a year in premiums.
That means she would have to pay $17,200 to get full coverage for only one calendar year!
This is why it’s very important to know the terms of your insurance plan, especially when it comes to outpatient services.
While it’s absolutely a good idea to have a high-deductible insurance plan for emergency situations, there are times when using it for outpatient medical testing doesn’t work in your favor financially.
When you have a high-deductible insurance plan, and you use it for testing at an ‘in-network’ hospital-based medical practice (i.e. a medical practice that is owned by a large hospital), you’ll most likely be charged thousands of dollars if you need multiple tests.
What if there was a way to avoid paying several thousand dollars, and instead, pay 50-80% less for the same exact testing? That’s where an independently-owned, insurance-free medical practice can work in your favor.
Taking a Different Approach
Let’s use the hypothetical example above, and say that instead of using her insurance at an in-network facility, Jane came to Trinity Heart and Vascular Group where everything is ‘self-pay,’ and no insurance contracts are involved.
In the previous example, Jane’s insurance company negotiated rates for her office visits and tests with a hospital-based cardiology practice. The rates that were billed to her for her initial visit and outpatient tests are as follows:
- New Patient Office Visits: $350
- Comprehensive Echocardiogram: $400
- Dobutamine Nuclear Stress Test: $3,750
Through Jane’s insurance plan, her total came to $4,500 to get her initial office visit and two tests tests done at an in-network facility, and Jane had to pay all of that on her own.
If Jane had decided to come to Trinity Heart and Vascular Group for her initial tests, here’s what she would have been charged:
- New Patient Office Visit: $239
- Comprehensive Echocardiogram: $159
- Dobutamine Nuclear Stress Test: $599
At Trinity Heart and Vascular Group, her total comes to $997.
In this scenario, if Jane chose to come to our practice for her outpatient cardiac testing (instead of going to her local hospital for outpatient testing), she would save $3,553.
This means that she would save thousands of dollars by not using her insurance! Let’s think about how she can use the funds she saved for some other type of necessity.
Let’s say that Jane needs to have her transmission replaced in her car, and it costs $2,500. Since she saved over $3,500 dollars by coming to our insurance-free practice, she can use that money for her new transmission.
By doing so, that means she took care of her cardiovascular needs and got a new transmission for a total of $3,497, instead of paying $7,000 for both of those things!
When we look at our healthcare costs from this perspective, we can begin to understand when and why a high-deductible plan should be used for outpatient testing, and when it shouldn’t (in terms of financial savings).
While every person’s situation is different, and every person’s insurance plan is different, it’s worth it to calculate these figures if it means saving thousands of dollars.
Now let’s look at the price comparison chart to see how our insurance-free cardiology practice may be able to save you money.
Cardiac Testing Price Comparison Chart
- ‘High-Deductible Plan’ category: The prices in this category show the average negotiated rates in a high-deductible insurance plan. These are the rates that patients pay for seeing an ‘in-network’ cardiologist.*
- ‘No Insurance Plan’ category: The prices in this category show the average rates that uninsured patients are charged when they go to their local hospital for outpatient testing.*
- ‘Our Price’ category: The prices in this category show the ‘self-pay’ rate that Trinity Heart and Vascular Group charges.
*Please Note: The price ranges for the ‘high-deductible plan’ category and ‘no insurance plan’ category are based on the national average. This means that, based on current data, the price ranges generally reflect what patients in the United States pay out of their own pocket if they have a high-deductible plan or no insurance at all. These prices are estimates, and may be slightly higher (and occasionally, slightly lower) depending on numerous factors, such as the specific hospital system, the specific insurance company, and/or geographic location.
In the chart below, there are three categories for each type of outpatient test:
‘High-Deductible Plan’ category: The prices in this category show the average negotiated rates in a high-deductible insurance plan. These are the rates that patients pay for seeing an ‘in-network’ cardiologist.*
‘No Insurance Plan’ category: The prices in this category show the average rates that uninsured patients are charged when they go to their local hospital for outpatient testing.*
‘Our Price’ category: The prices in this category show the ‘self-pay’ rate that Trinity Heart and Vascular Group charges.
*Please Note: The price ranges for the ‘high-deductible plan’ category and ‘no insurance plan’ category are based on the national average. This means that, based on current data, the price ranges generally reflect what patients in the United States pay out of their own pocket if they have a high-deductible plan or no insurance at all. These prices are estimates, and may be slightly higher (and occasionally, slightly lower) depending on numerous factors, such as the specific hospital system, the specific insurance company, and/or geographic location.
Test Type
EKG/ECG
Exercise Stress Test
Comprehensive Echocardiogram
Limited Echocardiogram
Exercise Stress Echocardiogram
Dobutamine Stress Echocardiogram
Exercise Nuclear Stress Test
Dobutamine Nuclear Stress Test
Regadenoson Nuclear Stress Test
AAA Screening
Carotid Doppler Ultrasound
Rest ABI
Exercise ABI
High-Deductible Plan
$30 – $100
$200 – $600
$400 – $900
$350 – $800
$600 – $1,800
$800 – $2,200
$1,500 – $3,500
$2,000 – $4,000
$2,500 – $4,500
$150 – $300
$250 – $650
$175 – $400
$250 – $500
No Insurance Plan
$200 – $2,000
$1,000 – $4,000
$1,000 – $3,000
$900 – $2,500
$1,000 – $4,000
$1,200 – $4,200
$2,000 – $4,500
$3,000 – $6,000
$3,500 – $6,500
$300 – $500
$750 – $1,500
$400 – $1,000
$500 – $1,300
Our Price
$25
$100
$179
$79
$299
$279
$699
$699
$899
$79
$159
$39
$79
Compare Prices
Please click on the arrow next to each test type to reveal the price comparisons.
High-Deductible Plan: $30 – $100
No Insurance Plan: $200 – $2,000
Our Price: $25
High-Deductible Plan: $200 – $600
No Insurance Plan: $1,000 – $4,000
Our Price: $100
High-Deductible Plan: $400 – $900
No Insurance Plan: $1,000 – $3,000
Our Price: $179
High-Deductible Plan: $350 – $800
No Insurance Plan: $900 – $2,500
Our Price: $79
High-Deductible Plan: $600 – $1,800
No Insurance Plan: $1,000 – $4,000
Our Price: $299
High-Deductible Plan: $800 – $2,200
No Insurance Plan: $1,200 – $4,200
Our Price: $299
High-Deductible Plan: $1,500 – $3,500
No Insurance Plan: $2,000 – $4,500
Our Price: $699
High-Deductible Plan: $2,000 – $4,000
No Insurance Plan: $3,000 – $6,000
Our Price: $699
High-Deductible Plan: $2,500 – $4,500
No Insurance Plan: $3,500 – $6,500
Our Price: $899
High-Deductible Plan: $150 – $300
No Insurance Plan: $300 – $500
Our Price: $79
High-Deductible Plan: $250 – $650
No Insurance Plan: $750 – $1,500
Our Price: $159
High-Deductible Plan: $175 – $400
No Insurance Plan: $400 – $1,000
Our Price: $39
High-Deductible Plan: $250 – $500
No Insurance Plan: $500 – $1,300
Our Price: $79
FAQs About Our Price Comparison Chart
Please click on any of the questions below to see the correlating answers.
For each test, the price range is wide due to the vast number of insurance plans in each state, as well as the contracts that those insurance companies have with each of their local hospitals and medical providers.
Even with a high-deductible insurance plan, some of these ‘in-network’ prices could still exceed the range depending on the terms of your plan. If you are uninsured, the prices could be double or triple the national average (and in certain cases, even more than that).
Since we don’t have contracts with insurance companies, we don’t have price ranges — just a flat price for each test. No matter what type of insurance plan you have, you pay the one-time price that’s listed on our website for any test(s) that you need.
You are always welcome to get cardiac testing done at an ‘in-network,’ hospital-based facility, where the in-network provider(s) can submit a claim through your insurance plan. In fact, that’s what most people do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, if you have a high-deductible plan, and want to save a significant amount of money, that would be the main reason to come to our ‘out-of-network’ facility for cardiac testing, and thus, not submit an ‘in-network’ claim through your insurance.
You may be wondering:
“Why would I purposely go to an ‘out-of-network’ facility or provider?”
That’s a good question! While this isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, it can certainly be beneficial to become a self-pay patient if your deductible amount is a few thousand dollars. How so? Let’s create a hypothetical example:
Let’s say that your deductible is $5,000, and this year, you’ve only had one claim for an x-ray in the amount of $300. That means you still have to pay $4,700 for any medical bills that you may incur for the rest of the calendar year.
Now let’s say that you went to a cardiologist, and he or she told you that you need an exercise nuclear stress test, and you found out that your local hospital charges a $2,800 ‘negotiated rate’ through your particular insurance plan.
This means that you would have to pay $2,800 of your own money since your insurance company won’t provide any coverage until after you’ve paid a total of $5,000 of your own medical bills (and even then, you’ll only get partial coverage until you meet your out-of-pocket maximum).
What should you do now? Spending almost $3,000 for one test seems unfair, but what choice do you have? That’s where we come in!
At our facility, that exact same cardiac test (an exercise nuclear stress test) is $499. That means that you would save $2,301 by coming to our facility and paying our “self-pay” rate!
At this point, you may be thinking:
“That sounds great, but how do I know for sure if I’ll save a significant amount of money?”
If you want to find out what your out-of-pocket cost will be for outpatient cardiac testing at your local hospital, you would need to contact your health insurance company and the ‘in-network’ hospital where the tests are conducted.
It’s important to verify with your insurance company that the provider who conducts and/or interprets the test is ‘in-network,’ as the testing facility itself may be ‘in-network,’ but that doesn’t automatically mean that the provider is also part of your insurance network.
Once you’ve verified that the provider and hospital/facility are both considered ‘in-network,’ be prepared to do more homework. Why? Your insurance company and the hospital where you plan on having the outpatient test will most likely not have an immediate answer for you regarding the price.
Once you receive the estimates, (which aren’t a guarantee of an exact and final price), the hospital and insurance company may provide estimates that don’t match. This means that you will have to make more phone calls to understand why there’s a discrepancy.
At this point, you’re probably wondering:
“Why is it so difficult to obtain an exact price ahead of time? If I receive an estimate, is it at least somewhat accurate?”
According to the law, your local hospital system has an obligation to provide you with a ‘good faith’ estimate based on your insurance plan or based on the fact that you’re uninsured. As a result, some hospitals now state on their website that they will provide an estimated price for transparency reasons.
That sounds like great news, but it’s important to read the fine print. Your local hospital will, in most circumstances, only give you a quote for the test itself.
(Hospitals are supposed to disclose upfront that you will get multiple bills in the mail. Some hospitals make that clear upfront, and some don’t).
In addition to sending you a bill for conducting the test, they will also send you: a bill for the provider, a bill for facility fees, a bill for the test report, a bill for the test interpretation, and so on.
This means the hospital will only give you an estimate of how much the test costs, but the cost for the provider appointment, the facility fees, the test report, etc., will most likely remain a mystery until you get those bills in the mail after your test has been conducted.
Most hospitals further state that the bill for your outpatient test may be more than what they initially quoted you.
Now you may be thinking:
“I don’t want to receive multiple surprise bills in the mail. Is there a way to avoid that?”
Yes! At Trinity Heart and Vascular Group, the price you see on our website for each cardiac test is the exact and total cost. There are no additional fees for the test report, interpretation, and so on. All of that is included with each test.
At a local hospital, if you use a high-deductible insurance plan (or are uninsured), it’s likely that you would receive multiple bills for one cardiac test, which could come to a total price that is 2 to 10 times more expensive than our prices.
Since our practice isn’t owned by any hospital, we’re able to set our own, fair prices, and leave out the unwanted surprises. We highly value complete transparency and informed consent — not only for any cardiac tests that you need, but also for the prices of those tests.
The prices you see on our website are a one-time payment for each service that you receive, and that’s it!
Yes and no. It truly is a complicated answer depending on the circumstance. On the one hand, if you go to a facility like ours — a facility that doesn’t have contracts with insurance companies — that facility and its providers are considered “out-of-network.”
In this instance, the answer would be ‘yes’ — you’re legally allowed to not use your health insurance. You don’t have to use your health insurance at our practice or any other insurance-free practice, and legally can’t if that practice and its providers don’t have a contract with your insurance plan. You would instead pay a “self pay” or “cash pay” rate.
If you have out-of-network benefits, you could ask your insurance company for reimbursement for that rate, but you’re not usually legally obligated to submit a reimbursement claim.**
On the other hand, if you go to a facility that accepts your health insurance plan, and your insurance company shows that this particular facility’s providers are ‘in-network’ providers, then legally, you most likely have to use your insurance. In many cases, an ‘in-network’ facility or provider is legally obligated to submit a claim through your insurance plan.
There may be a clause in your insurance plan agreement that states you can choose to be a self-pay patient at an in-network facility, but you would need to contact your insurance company to find out.
However, even if that’s the case, most medical facilities don’t allow patients with in-network benefits to be a self-pay patient, as they don’t want to risk any legal ramifications from the fine print in an insurance company contract.
The answer is ‘maybe,’ as it depends on your particular insurance plan.
If you have out-of-network benefits, then you will most likely get partial or full reimbursement (if you submit a reimbursement request to your insurance company), but that usually goes toward an out-of-network deductible, which is separate from your in-network deductible.
You may be wondering, “How do I know if I have ‘out-of-network’ benefits with an ‘out-of-network’ deductible, and how do I find out how much I’ll be reimbursed?”
That’s another great question. We highly recommend that you read your insurance plan’s ‘Summary of Benefits’ booklet to find out what your reimbursement rate is (it’s usually a percentage).
If still you aren’t completely sure what your reimbursement rate is after reading the terms of your plan, then it would be best to call your health insurance company.
We recommend asking a customer service representative the following questions:
1.) “Do I have ‘out-of-network’ coverage/benefits?”
2.) “If I have ‘out-of-network’ benefits, what is the reimbursement rate?”
3.) “Do my ‘out-of-network’ benefits cover cardiac testing, and if so, is there a maximum or cap on how much you’ll reimburse?”
[A reimbursement rate that is part of out-of-network coverage usually consists of “co-insurance,” which means you have to pay a percentage.
For example, if your co-insurance percentage is 25%, that means you have to cover 25% of each ‘self-pay’ bill that you send in for reimbursement, and your insurance company will reimburse you for 75% of the bill.]
That’s a really great question. This is one of the most confusing aspects of being a self-pay patient with a high-deductible insurance plan, and it’s important to dive into the answer.
From a purely financial aspect, the answer depends on how high your deductible and out-of-pocket maximum are, and how many claims you’ve submitted. As you know, any bills that are applied to your ‘in-network’ deductible means that you’re closer to obtaining ‘full coverage’ for any given calendar year.
If you’ve had an elective procedure or emergency surgery already this year (with an ‘in-network’ provider), then getting your cardiac testing done with an ‘in-network’ provider makes the most financial sense because you’ve most likely met your deductible already with your surgical procedure.
For example, if you you have a $6,000 deductible (the amount you’re responsible to pay for all ‘in-network’ medical services), and your negotiated rate for knee surgery through your insurance company is $10,000, then you’ll obviously meet your deductible with that one surgery alone.
So in this hypothetical example, if you have knee surgery in September, and you need cardiac testing in November, it makes sense (solely from a financial standpoint) to get the cardiac testing at a facility that accepts your insurance if you have met your deductible for the year.
However, if you don’t plan on having any major procedures, and/or you don’t get medical testing done very often, it makes much more sense to go to a self-pay facility for your cardiac testing.
Here’s why: If you only have your insurance plan for emergencies or catastrophic events (which is a very valid reason to have a high-deductible plan), you hopefully won’t have to use it since emergency procedures are usually far and few between.
So if you only needed two cardiac tests this year, and you don’t have any major procedures planned, wouldn’t you rather pay a few hundred dollars for your cardiac tests instead of a few thousand?
If you haven’t come close to meeting your in-network deductible for the year, you would most likely pay significantly more to use your insurance plan for cardiac testing than you would if you came to our insurance-free facility!
Yes! When you get your cardiac test(s) done at our facility, your health insurance company won’t be involved, and instead, you’ll pay a ‘self pay’ or ‘cash pay’ price (those prices are listed in the ‘Our Prices’ category in the chart above).
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to use your insurance plan elsewhere. You still have your health insurance plan, and you can use it to go to providers and facilities that accept it, but you won’t use it at Trinity Heart and Vascular Group since our facility and its providers are ‘out-of-network.’
Being a self-pay patient at our practice does not affect your insurance plan, nor does it affect your ability to use it at ‘in-network’ facilities.
In fact, you can use your insurance for any blood work that our providers order, as well as medications they prescribe, since those can be taken care of at any ‘in-network’ facility of your choosing.
Absolutely! While most people with high-deductible insurance plans come here for financial reasons, some also come here for additional reasons that aren’t related to the financial savings.
Here are the top four reasons that people who have already met their deductible would come to Trinity Heart and Vascular Group:
Reason #1: The patient has an in-network cardiologist who requested cardiac testing, but the patient’s insurance company refused to authorize the test(s). If this describes your current situation, we have good news — your current cardiologist can send us an order for the tests that you need, and you can get your tests done here since none of our tests require ‘pre-authorization!’
This means that you can still keep your in-network cardiologist, and come to our facility just for the tests that he or she initially requested.
After you get your tests done at our facility, we will send your images and results to your current cardiologist, so that they can continue your plan of care.
Reason #2: The patient wants immediate access to cardiovascular care. If you’re experiencing cardiac issues (or experiencing symptoms that seem like they might be heart related), time is of the essence.
Even if you’ve met your deductible and out-of-pocket maximum for the year, the wait times for cardiac office visits and testing can be very long when using your insurance plan at a hospital-based facility.
If you’ve tried to set up an appointment with a cardiovascular specialist, and the earliest opening is two month from now, you have to decide if it’s worth risking the long wait.
If you don’t feel comfortable waiting weeks or months, you can contact our facility, and we’ll most likely be able to get you into our office the same week that you call (and sometimes even the same day)!
Reason #3: The patient wants personalized care in a calm environment. (They don’t want to have to go to a hospital building for outpatient testing.) In this fast-paced world, many patients feel like they’re just a number when they’re part of a corporate healthcare setting. We empathize with that feeling, and we’re here to provide an alternative.
Since we are independently-owned (we aren’t part of a hospital) we have a relaxed environment, where a smiling face is ready to greet you as soon as you walk through the door.
We understand that dealing with heart issues is stressful enough, so we try to make your visit as stress-free as possible. We offer a professional, friendly, laidback approach, and if that’s what you’ve been looking for, you’ve come to the right place.
At our offices, there are no confusing parking lots, or multiple floors and hallways to try to navigate. We have our own space at each location (Greeneville and Johnson City), and each office has direct, easy access right to our front door.
Additionally, we don’t have crowded, noisy waiting rooms, and you don’t have to wait two hours after check-in to be seen for your appointment.
Instead, our waiting areas are in a calm environment, and you won’t be waiting for very long!
Furthermore, because our providers don’t have to spend time filling out numerous insurance forms, they have more time to speak with you in detail about your cardiac issues, and answer any questions that you have.
Reason #4: The patient is looking for a cardiovascular specialist who is detail-oriented, and who establishes long-term relationships with their patients. Have you ever felt rushed during your appointment, or felt like you didn’t have enough time to ask questions or discuss your treatment plan?
That’s not how healthcare should be. You have the right to be informed of your options when it comes to your diagnosis, testing, and treatment, and our providers do everything they can to make sure that happens in a compassionate manner.
This means that they take the time to patiently answer your questions, and also explain things in plain language — and they do this because your heart health matters to them.
This approach fosters a long-term provider-patient relationship that’s based on mutual respect and trust. We value compassionate, detailed communication, as this leads to better health outcomes for each of our patients.
**Disclaimer: This page is for informational and educational purposes only. The content on this page should not be construed as legal and/or medical advice. Always check with your insurance company if you have questions about: when you do or do not have to legally submit a claim through your insurance plan, pricing for medical services, the terms and benefits of your specific plan, and/or which facilities and providers are considered ‘in network’ and ‘out of network.’