Outpatient Services

Outpatient Scheduling

Outpatient Services – Your doctor’s office should give you an appointment scheduled after they call Knapp Medical Center and make the appointment for you. The written appointment schedule will include the date, time, location within the hospital, the procedure to be done, and the preparations you need to make before you arrive for your appointment.

All patients are admitted and treated at Knapp Medical Center without regard to age, disability, race, color, national origin, religious creed, or ability to pay. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday-Friday. For information, call 956-969-5129. After hours, please go to the emergency room admitting office.

• Please bring all of your medicines with you
• Please come to Outpatient Registration 30 minutes before your appointment
• Patients with appointments are registered and seen first, so make sure you leave your doctor’s office with a written appointment.
• Patients may pre-register for any outpatient test prior to their scheduled appointment.
• For information, call 956-969-5566

Series Patients

Diabetes Center, Hyperbaric Wound Treatment Center, Nutrition Services, Outpatient Infusion Therapy, and Rehabilitation Services patients are considered series patients because their care requires more than one visit. If you are a series patient, you only have to register on the first visit and then you can go directly to the department for all other visits during that “series” of care.

For all other outpatient services, you must register each time you come for tests or treatment.
Outpatient Registration hours are:

• Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Outpatient Registration
• Saturday: 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. After hours, please go to Emergency Department Admitting or call 969-5399.
• Holidays: Closed. Outpatient services will continue on the following business day. After hours, please go to Emergency Department Admitting or call 956-969-5399.

Beneficiary Notice (ABN)

The purpose of an ABN is to give the patient advance notice when the healthcare clinician has reason to believe that Medicare will probably not pay for the test or services ordered. When ordering tests or services that do not meet national coverage limits or local medical review policy, your doctor will explain why the test is being ordered, that Medicare will not pay for the test, and, therefore, an ABN must be signed.

Medicare will only pay for services that it determines to be “reasonable and necessary”, under section 1862 (a)(1) of the Medicare law. If Medicare determines that a particular service, although it would otherwise be covered, is not “reasonable and necessary, under Medicare program standards, Medicare may deny payment for that service. Medicare frequently denies claims for laboratory tests for the following reasons:

• Medicare does not usually pay for this service for the diagnosis provided.
• Medicare does not pay for research or investigational tests.
• Medicare does not pay for this service based on frequency limitations.
• Medicare does not pay for routine screens.
• Medicare does not pay for annual physicals.