About Monsoon Wellness

FAQs

Do you have any conflicts of interest?

Not really. We privately own a few biotech company stocks with minimal exposure to psychiatric products. We promise to always start with the medication we feel will be the combination of safe/effective/affordable for you regardless of any pop in stock price or anything. As much as the pharmaceutical representatives wish we would, we won’t recommend an expensive medication where an inexpensive one would have a similar probability of working for you, just because they invited us to dinner or brought coffee and colorful flyers. We do not refer for kickbacks or quid-pro-quo referrals, but because we believe that clinician will be able to help you.

Do you do Genetic testing?

We can. Genesight testing can help identify individual pharmacokinetics that may be helpful in picking medications in hopes of minimizing side effects. It can’t yet tell us what will be effective, which is frustrating, but can be really helpful if all you’ve tried are medications with expected suboptimal metabolism for your body.

Remote Communication Policy:

Email/text/phone/other communications should never be used to communicate emergencies.

These time-lapse communications are great for scheduling appointments and communicating routine issues, but when minutes matter, please don’t leave it to chance when more appropriate resources are available (see Emergencies below).

Email is usually checked every 24 hours, but we make no guarantees about response time. Most patients can attest, we are more responsive than many, but there will be times that may not be the case.

For your privacy, some issues (e.g. AIDS or HIV, detailed mental health, substance abuse, work-related injuries or disability) are not appropriate for email discussion.

We won’t diagnose or treat by email. Please do not ask. If there is a new symptom or side effect or issue and you’d like to schedule a quick conversation about that, remote communications are great to set that up. However if there is an issue we need to work on together that we were not anticipating, you’ll probably be  directed to make another appointment to dedicate appropriate tie to the issue to best help you.

Anything with clinically meaningful information that is emailed will be uploaded to your medical record. If you wouldn’t say it in the interview, don’t send it in an email.

There are privacy risks with un-encrypted email. If at all possible, please use the patient portal rather than email/text for any clinically sensitive information. Even though encrypted on our end, your personal email is more vulnerable.

Please do not abuse the availability of these communication channels. 99% of patients don’t need this reminder and the 1% who do won’t listen anyway.

Again, email/text/phone/other communications should never be used to communicate emergencies.

Forms:

Our intake forms are very long on purpose. All the information is recorded and stored within the EHR. The forms will be reviewed prior to your appointment. This will allow us to have a focused conversation and utilize any more specialized screening instruments to best help you.

As we find informational hand outs that I give out often enough to be lost but want another copy of without admitting you lost it, we’ll put them here. We’re not just going to put up every form we can find and let you sift thru them to hope one might be helpful to you.

Fees:

Will be discussed when confirming the appointment.

We will not be contracted with commercial insurers anytime soon.

If applicable, there is a sliding fee schedule (SFS) based on income and family size. Monsoon Wellness is committed to working with all patients regardless of ability to pay.

Cancellation/No-Show Policy:

Please cancel/reschedule appointments as soon as you know you have a scheduling conflict. We schedule time specifically for you, as you do for us. Our time together is valuable.  We understand that life happens and things come up. But treatment is important too. If your clinician feels that cancellations/rescheduling is interfering with your ability to participate in our treatment model, we will discuss referring you to a more traditional model of care that can better accommodate your needs. If there is an unexpected period no contact that is greater than 30 days, your chart will be closed and it will be up to the individual clinician whether to reopen if you decide to return to work with us.

Medication Refill Policy:

Medications that can be refilled will be with an adequate supply of medication until your next appointment. If that appointment changes, please mention that when rescheduling your appointment. If you have not been seen for more than 30 days (or less for some medications) since you should have run out of medication, no refills will be provided until you are seen. If you are being prescribed a controlled substance, please refer to the controlled substance agreement document for details about refills.

Urgencies / Emergencies:

At present, we have very little capability to respond to urgencies or emergencies and strongly encourage you to not rely on the ability of this practice to address those needs. If there is or might be a crisis, please utilize the appropriate community resources, including 911 if needed.Crisis line numbers

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:  1-800-273-TALK (8255)
• Maricopa County – Crisis Response Network: 1-800-631-1314; 602-222-9444
• Empact Crisis Line:  480-784-1500
• Pima County Crisis Line:  1-800-796-6762

Psychiatric Hospitals / Urgent Care Facilities

• The Urgent Psychiatric Care Center (UPC): (602) 416-7600
• Aurora Behavioral Health:   480-345-5420
• Banner Behavioral Health:  480-448-7500
• Oasis Behavioral Health:     480-917-9301
• Valley Hospital – Phoenix:    602-957-4000
• Valleywise Maryvale: 602-655-1000
• Valleywise Mesa: 480-344-2000