The Office

The physical layout of our office is designed to provide you with comfort, privacy, and confidentiality. Our staff is caring, courteous, respectful, and professional. They will do all that they can to make sure your relationship with the office is a mutually satisfactory one. To assist our handicapped patients from the parking lot we have wheelchairs available from our receptionist. Please check in with our receptionist every time you enter the office.

Our office hours are from 8:00 am until 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday, and Saturday from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm. We see patients by appointment. On occasion an emergency will arise. We will make every effort to accommodate those non-scheduled emergencies within the office. If there is a life threatening situation please call 911 before calling our office. If hospitalization is required as a result of that, we can arrange your admission with the hospitalists at Washington County Hospital.

In order to ensure that you see your provider at the appointed time, we ask that you come to the office ten to fifteen minutes prior to your scheduled time so that you may be registered and checked in by the nursing staff. We respect your time commitments and will do everything possible to see you in a timely fashion. As our office confirms appointment times, we request the courtesy of a twenty-four hour cancellation notice if you are unable to keep your appointment. Appointments made within two weeks or confirmed appointments missed without cancellation are subject to a “missed appointment” fee.

When you call for an appointment, please identify yourself by name and year of birth. If you are ill, please be prepared to give the secretary a brief description of your symptoms, duration of illness and let her know about any pain you may be having. If you feel that you have an emergency please let the staff know immediately so that this can be dealt with in a timely fashion. If you are calling for a prescription refill, please have the bottle close at hand. You will need the name and spelling of the medication, the dose strength, frequency with which you take the medicine, as well as the name of the pharmacy and prescription number. Please call us several days before you are out of your medicine. Refill requests are handled at the end of office hours. Refills usually can be picked up at the designated pharmacy the evening of your request.

At times it may be necessary for the physician to give advice over the phone. Medical conditions that are potentially serious or difficult to diagnose will naturally require that you schedule an appointment. Patients requiring treatment outside the normal office hours or requesting treatment over the telephone, instead of an office visit, will be subject to a telephone charge. Most insurance contracts do not provide benefits for telephone medicine.

All phone messages received that require a call back from our staff will be reviewed by your physician. Therefore, most phone calls will be returned after office hours. Please leave appropriate phone numbers and times to return calls. Our busiest times in the office are in the mornings, especially on Mondays and Fridays. Calls regarding routine matters are best handled during the afternoon hours or through the general voice mailbox for a return phone call from the secretary. Please do not call the office for results on lab work, unless otherwise directed by your physician. You should receive notice from us within three weeks on labs indicating negative and/or normal range results.

Business Policies

Potomac Family Medicine is in the people business. We are a service-oriented practice.  As such, we expect payment for this service at the time that it is rendered. We accept cash, personal checks, and certain credit cards. There will be a charge on all returned checks. We also reserve the right to assess a handling fee on unpaid balances after thirty days.

As you know, the face of medicine is changing rapidly. Managed care is here now and will probably expand in the future. We are constantly reviewing contracts from various managed care and insurance organizations. If we participate in a certain plan, we will honor its payment contracts. Under many circumstances, a patient copay will be all that is necessary and as such, payable at the time of each visit. If not paid at the visit, we reserve the right to charge a service fee.

Patients residing in Frederick, Maryland, Cumberland, Maryland and Martinsburg, West Virginia will now be able to access our office toll-free by dialing the numbers below:
            Frederick, MD – 301-673-2120
            Cumberland, MD – 301-683-2120
            Martinsburg, WV – 304-378-2120

After Hours

There will always be physicians in our office during regular office hours. All of our patients will have their own family physician. However, due to appointment availability, staffing, emergencies, vacation or illness of that physician, you may be asked to see the nurse practitioners or physician assistant.

After hours, a physician will be available to you through our answering service, which can be reached by dialing our regular office number, 301-791-7900.  We request that you contact the physician after hours only for emergencies. Medication refills and non-acute medical problems should be handled during our normal business hours or with the automated voice mail system. If you have an emergency after hours and have not heard from the on-call physician within twenty minutes, please call back.