What to expect as a new patient

As a first-time patient, please call us at 253-848-5951 to schedule an appointment. Once you establish care, our care team will help you get set up with MySFM patient portal so in the future you will have the option to schedule online.

When you call to schedule an initial appointment, please have the following patient information ready:

• Full name and middle initial
• Address
• Your current phone number
• Your birthdate
• Your social security number
• Your preferred physician’s name
• The nature or reason for your call/appointment
• Medical insurance information

It is very important that you let the scheduler know about all the concerns you would like addressed during your appointment. This helps us make sure an appropriate amount of time is scheduled.

Coverage Reminder: If you are scheduling a regular well exam and additional care is provided beyond what is normally covered in routine well exams, your insurance may require an additional co-pay or deny payment and you will be billed for these services. Please check with your insurance provider for detailed information about your coverage.

Please bring: 

• Your current insurance card and/or medical coupon 
• Shot records 

• Payment for any outstanding balance on your account 
• Co-pay 
• Any prescription medication you are currently taking. Bring in your medications or write them down and bring a complete up-to-date list. 
• Change of address or phone number(s) if you’ve recently moved or made a change. 

Please arrive 10-15 minutes early for your appointment. If this is your first appointment, please arrive 20 minutes early to complete paperwork. 

We use an automated appointment reminder system that will call you one day before your appointment. If you schedule your appointment online, we will send you an email appointment confirmation and reminder a couple of days before the appointment.

Please call our office at (253) 848-5951 as soon as you realize you won’t be able to make your appointment. We request that cancellations be made as early as possible, a minimum of 24 hours in advance. If you scheduled the appointment online, just log in and cancel your appointment.

Failure to arrive to the scheduled appointment will be recorded in the patient’s chart as a “no show.” We understand that there are legitimate reasons for a missed appointment; however, if there is an ongoing pattern we may ask you to find a new provider.

If you are late we will make our best attempt to see you, however if you more than 15 minutes late, it is up to your provider’s discretion whether his/her schedule will allow you to be seen or if you will need to reschedule for a different time.

Sound Family Medicine strives to provide excellent and comprehensive care for our patients. If a patient does not show up to their scheduled appointment, it impacts the provider’s schedule and decreases access to care for other patients. We ask patients to honor the time they have scheduled with their provider and have created our no-show policy to reduce the number of missed appointments.

The policy:

• In the event a patient does not arrive to one or two appointments, or is more than 15 minutes late, and the provider is unable to work the patient into their schedule, the patient will receive a
  warning letter reminding them of our no-show policy.
• After the third missed appointment, it is entirely up to the provider’s discretion to place the patient on probation, initiate Discharge Policy, or excuse the third no show.

Probation:

• Probation status restricts patients from scheduling future appointments for 12 months.
• Patients will only have access to same day appointments.
• If the patient is in good standing after the 1-year probation period, probation will be cancelled.

Patients are encouraged to call (253) 848-5951 if an appointment requires rescheduling.

In most cases you can expect to see your own doctor. However, there may be occasions when your doctor is at the hospital delivering babies or handling an emergency. If this occurs, we will call to reschedule your appointment or ask if you would be willing to see another provider at your scheduled appointment time.

Our providers are with patients throughout the day, so they do not immediately answer individual phone calls unless it is an emergency.  We have consulting nurses on staff that are able to return your calls within one business day. If you have a mySFM account, you can log on and submit your question via secure email to your provider team.

In the event you suspect a life-threatening emergency, such as a heart attack, a stroke, or other emergency, you should call 911 for transportation to an emergency room. If you have questions for a provider that should not wait until the office is open, you may contact the doctor on call at 253-848-5951. 

Americall is Sound Family Medicine’s partner in helping to connect our after-hours callers with our on-call providers. Once connected, you’ll have a couple of options to choose from before speaking with a non-medical Americall agent. They will obtain your contact information, document your concern and route the information to the on-call provider before connecting you to them by phone. This may take a bit of time if the provider is at the hospital or otherwise occupied, but will help prepare the provider with important information before speaking with you. 

If you have a non-emergent issue and also have a mySFM account, you can log on and submit your question via secure email. 

We refill prescriptions for controlled substances during weekday business hours only. Other refills may be managed using the on-call physician if an emergency need occurs.

Our providers keep a few times open each day for their patients who need to be seen that day. You can either log on to mySFM to or call us to book one of these appointments. If they are filled, you can walk in to be seen right away at our Puyallup and Bonney Lake Sound walk-in clinics.