If you contact our providers outside of an appointment, there will be a sliding scale, pay what you can, fee incurred. This fee is not meant to discourage members from reaching out with urgent concerns, but to ensure that there is acknowledgement of the value of our providers' time, and that their accessibility outside of clinic working hours is beyond what many physicians provide.
If you have a new non-urgent health concern or continuing care question, please start by contacting Pearl and trying to schedule an in-person (or Telemedicine) appointment with our providers. For truly urgent issues, we are often able to accommodate same-day appointments, and will try our best to do so if warranted.
If you are unable to find an appointment time that works with your schedule, or would like your issue addressed sooner than appointment times we can provide, you can reach out via portal message, with the understanding that a sliding-scale fee will be charged as noted on the fee schedule below.
If you If you have an urgent concern after hours, you can contact your primary care provider for support. Dr. Kerry prefers a text, Windy prefers text, Dr. Susanne prefers a phone call. We can all give advice and help you determine if a visit to urgent care or the ED is warranted. Please understand for this contact a sliding-scale fee will be charged as noted on the fee schedule below.
A breakdown of HLC’s outside of appointment communication policies:
- Text messaging - any text sent directly to Dr. Kerry’s, Windy's, or Dr. Susanne's personal phone should be deeply considered and reserved for urgent issues.
- Short text conversations (a few messages back and forth) are $30, a more lengthy conversation will be billed at $60-120 depending on time spent responding
- Phone Calls - during business hours please call the clinic number (971-231-4536) for all concerns. Urgent concerns outside of business hours please follow instructions on the voicemail to reach the on call physician (Windy, Dr. Susanne, or Dr. Kerry).
Calls will be billed as visits:
- 5-15 minutes: $60
- 15-30 minutes: $120
- Portal messages- There will be no charge for follow-up/clarifying questions after an in-person/telemedicine appointment which are sent through the ChARM portal. - Any response to messages pertaining to a new health issue communicated through the portal will be billed as a 15 minute visit ($60).
Please note that all questions regarding appointment scheduling should be directed to Pearl either through the ChARM portal or via a phone call during clinic business hours
Please note that all payments are sliding scale, pay what you can-- just like our in-person appointments! The billed amounts serve as a reference guide for the actual cost of our providers' time, but you choose the amount you pay. This model gives you the flexibility to decide on a payment amount that is feasible for you/your family. We never want financial burden to stand in the way of seeking care. Always reach out if you have an urgent health concern. Healthy Living Community is open to discussing other reimbursement avenues, including barter.
To best support our lowest income members HLC is now billing CareOregon, and communications outside of appointment times can be billed through CareOregon as a Telemedicine visit.
This policy is not meant to burden you, just recognize and affirm the time our providers are spending outside of their designated working hours to deliver the comprehensive care they fundamentally value being able to provide.
