Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

You can certainly bring any radiologic imaging that you have already had performed. If you do have an MRI or x-ray, please bring a copy of the written MRI or x-ray report. Results of recent lab work, done within the last six months, may be brought to your visit, if you feel they are pertinent to your current condition.

Payment is dueat the time of service. We accept cash, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover card. Check out our Pricing and Payments section in this website.

While we are not a part of every insurance networks, we are part of some of the major insurance networks: 

Among insurances we participate with  we have the following

 BC/BS PLANS ACCEPTED

Advantage 65 – Premier Select B&D (Medicare Supplement)

Advantage 65 –Select B&D (Medicare Supplement)

Advantage 65 –Select E (Medicare Supplement),

BlueMedicare Choice (Regional PPO)

BlueMedicare Group PPO (Employer PPO)

BlueMedicare Patriot (PPO)

BlueMedicare Select (PPO)

BlueMedicare Value (PPO)

BlueMedicare Value (PPO) with Level 1

BlueChoice

BlueOptions

BlueOptions Health & Dental – Health

BlueOptions Hospital Surgical Plus

BlueOptions Temporary Insurance

Preferred Patient Care 

MEDICAIDE

Regular Medicaid only

MEDICARE

Regular Medicare

Medicare DME

Railroad Medicare

TRICARE 

Tricare standard only

Be aware however that even within these insurance companies every policy is different and offer different coverage. Additionally, some of the treatments and services we provide like for example Prolotherapy, PRP, Cell Therapy and others, are not covered by any network. Our practice for know is a hybrid model but eventually our plan is to drop all insurances and have a small number of patient for "Direct Specialist Care" only to get away from the rat race revolving door kind of practice that taking insurances forces you to.

Additionally most insurance policies, even when the service provided is covered, will have either a copay, a co-insurance and/or a deductible. You will be responsible for whichever of those charges your insurance company does not cover or pay at time of service. Our receptionist can help you figure this out before your visit so you are prepared.

Dr. Dieguez office provides our patients with an invoice or receipt of what they paid us. It is then up to the patient to submitted it to his insurance company for possible reimbursement. The invoice will reflect what you paid in full and reimbursement should be sent directly to the you the patient. Invoices can NOT be submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, or HMO plans. Our billing company will not get involved in your dealings with your insurer.

We cannot, however, guarantee any insurance reimbursement. Please feel free to ask us any specific questions, and review our Pricing and Payment policies section.

We also offer subscription programs for "Direct Specialist Care". With this program you get priority appointment with either same day appointment or next day appointment and additionally you can contact the doctor on his cell phone when any issues arise and can come to his office weekly, all for a small monthly fee. Less that what you pay for your lawn care. Remember that we can not offer you this subscription program if we participate with your insurance plan. If you have any of the following insurances you can have acces to our Direct Specialist Care program:

Insurances we do not participate with: Commercial plans like: Aetna, AvMed, BC/BS HMO, Beech Street, Signa, Coventry, Dimension Plus, EHN, Florida Healthcare Plan, Great West, Humana, Multiplan PHCS, Neighborhood HealthPlan; Insurance Exchanges HIX like : Aetna QHP, AvMed entrust, Molina Market Place, Oscar Health, Sunshine-AMBETTER, United Healthcare Hix,  Medicare Advantage plans like: Aetna Medicare HMO/PPO, Aetna Medicare Assure HMO, Aetna Medicare Summit HMO, AvMed Medicare HMO, Freedom Health Medicare HMO, Humana Medicare HMO, Molina Medicare HMO, Positive Healthcare SNP Medicare HMO, Preferred Care Network Medicare HMO, Preferred Care Partners Medicare HMO, Prominence Health Plan, Solis Health plan. Medicaid plans like: Aetna Medicaid HMO, Aetna FL Healthy Kids, AmeriHealth Caritas Medicaid HMO, Clear Health Alliance SNP Medicaid HMO, Community Care Plan, Florida Community Care FCC Medicaid HMO, Humana Medicaid HMO, Molina Medicaid HMO, Simply Healthcare Medicaid HMO, Simply Healthcare FL Healthy Kids HMO, Sunshine CMS Title XIX, Sunshine CMS Title XXI, Sunshine Medicaid HMO, Sunshine FL Healthy Kids HMO, United Healthcare Medicaid HMO)  UNITED HEALTHCARE:Individual Exchange Benefit Plan Choice, Choice plus, Navigate Charter and Charter balance, Charter Plus Charter HMO, Charter Balance HMO, and Charter Plus HMOChoice, Choice Advanced, Choice HMO, Choice HMO Advance Choice plus premier, Choice plus HMO premier Choice plus with Harvard PilgrimChoice Premier, Choice with Harvard Pilgrim Core, Core Essential, Core Essential Premier Core HMO and Core Essential HMO, Core premier. Doctors plan, Doctors plan HMO, Doctors plan plus HMO, Doctors plan plus Heritage plus, Heritage Select Advantage-A1 Heritage Select Advantage, Heritage Select EPO, Heritage Select POS/HMO

Finally we also offer "Concierge Specialist Care" These treatment packages are for treatments and services not covered by any insurance company such as Prolotherapy, Platelet Rich Plasma, Cell therapies, direct cell phone connectivity with the doctor and text messaging with the doctor. Please call or visit our office for more information.  

What the Health Insurance Companies are doing to Medicine and the problems Patients and Physicians face! 

 I just finished reviewing the Northeast Florida 2024 Medicare Fee Schedule for the services that we provide at our office. For every procedure or visit, with only one exception, we got a decrease in the already low payments from $2:00 to $13:00 in all but one code. Even for very involved and dangerous procedures that can kill you, they are paying us peanuts. A plumber or an AC repairman comes to your house/office to fix a faucet of change a filter in the attic and get paid more than what doctors get for an office visit! And on top of the low payments, often doctor have to wait 60 to 90 days for the insurance to pay us!

You may ask yourself how is this i going to affect you the patient? With the ever-decreasing payments to the physicians that are the ones that provide the actual medical care, and in view of outrageous increases in office operational expenses and increase in supplies prices, physicians have to make some changes to be able to survive. Let’s analyze the options a physician has in view of these fanacial issues:

Physicians Option 1.- Pack the schedule as much as he/she can and spend even less time with you the patient when you go to his/her office. He may even hire a mid-level practitioner such as a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant with much less experience and training, to see even more patients and you may not even see the doctor at all!  How many times have you gone to the doctor office and never saw the doctor? I know physicians that have master this type of revolving door kind of practice that pride themselves for seeing 90 to 100 patients in an 8 hours day. Do the numbers. They don’t even have time to smell the patient, let alone do a physical exam and take a history of the patient’s problem. Who suffers? You the patient!

Physicians Option 2.- The doctor may decide to be more aggressive and either schedule you for more frequent office visits or more procedures than aren’t rally necessary. Remember they have got to make up for the decrease in pay. They will try to justify anything, like revision of this or that orthopedic procedure or be more aggressive by trying to sell more complex treatmemts instead of trying the simplest things first. Remember, that revolving door has to start turning faster and faster! More vaccines, more injections, more blood test, more follow ups. More of everything!!

Physicians Option 3.- You have probably heard of “Direct Primary Care” and “Direct Specialist Care”. Well, they are becoming very popular both for patient and physicians. Even those patients with health insurance love it! It brings back medicine to what it was in the old days before insurances appear around 1965. A better relation between you and your doctor.  These are basically subscription type programs with a doctor. You pay anywhere from $120 to $140 per month to the doctor and you have priority access to his services with same day or next day appointment and on top of that, access to the doctor’s cell phone number for whatever may come up. No deductibles, no copays! These programs are a win-win for both doctors and patients because it decreases the stress of a medical practice and patients dont have to weight weeks or even month for an appointment. And they cost you about the same amount you pay monthly for lawn care. You may ask yourself why do I need this subscription if I have insurance? Don’t forget that even if you have a good health insurance policy, which is recommended for you to have, you will have a three-to-five-thousand-dollar deductible and sometimes more, and on top of that copays and also at times even coinsurance that you pay out of pocket year after year before your insurance pays a dime.  Insurances make it in such a way that before they pay a dime for your care, you have to pay your deductible, any copays and any coinsurance!! That can get expensive year after year. Your cost with a subscription program with a Direct Primary Care or Direct Specialist Care physician, is much lower than that no matter if you go to the doctor every week!

Physician Option 4.- You probably have seen or heard physicians offering to patient sophisticated treatment options not covered by any insurance because they are pricy so insurances do not want to deal with them and call them experimental when in reality, they are been used at mayor universities and medical institutions like the Mayo Clinic. Since the insurance does not cover these types of treatments, physicians can offer them to the patients as “Direct Concierge Care” and get paid by the patient. They also get direct cell phone access to the doctor for questions and texting with the doctor. Some physicians offer easy payment plans for patients to have access to these modalities.

Now let me just give you an idea of some of the cost increases physicians are facing in their practice. One that comes to mind is the prices of dextrose solution. Before the pandemic the price of a box with 25 vials 50 ml each of 50% dextrose was about $140. Now that same box, when you can find it, is around $740. Add to that an increase in the price of electricity, water, office maintenance, increase in all supply’s prices, including syringes, needles, medications, increase in malpractice insurance etc., etc.  

We at our office are transitioning to Options 3 and 4. We feel that following this path we provide better more personalized care to our patients and a better service to our community with much less headache for our staff. We got out of the rat race and the revolving door kind of practice. We still have three or four insurances that we accept so you can say our practice is a hybrid but we are dropping one insurance at a time. We just dropped United Health Care and others will follow. Our goal is to be totally away from insurance type of medical practice.

Please for additional information or a consultatios with Dr. Dieguez pleas call our office at (904) 824-0955. For more information about our practice and what we treat, visit out website at www.TheOrthobiologicClinic.com

The average new patient visit is approximately forty (40) minutes. If you are receiving Interventional Orthobiolgic therapy treatments such as Bone Marrow MSC therapy or PRP or even Prolotherapy, then the first visit may take up to an hour or longer. If you are being seen for multiple body areas, the visit may run longer. A follow-up after a procedure is approximately 15 minutes.

If you are traveling from out of town, and the reason you are coming to Dr. Dieguez’s office is to receive Prolotherapy, plans can be made ahead of time so you can receive it the same day of your visit, provided that your body can physically handle it. If Dr. Dieguez feels that your general health is too poor, he may suggest certain laboratory testing first.

In most cases, driving is not a problem after you receive Prolotherapy. You will feel a little stiff, but mobility is not limited. In fact, some movement is helpful after Prolotherapy. However, if you have certain areas treated, we do not suggest driving immediately after Prolotherapy. In addition, if you required any oral medication for sedation that increases drowsiness, you must have a driver to take you home for your safety.

Unless advised otherwise by Dr. Dieguez, patients coming in for Prolotherapy must eat before the appointment. Please eat a good-sized breakfast with protein before coming in for a morning appointment, and eat a good-sized lunch with protein before coming in for an afternoon appointment.

Patients in whom any kind of sedation is being planned are not to eat or drink anything four hours before the scheduled treatment.

Thanks for taking the time to read through our most frequently asked questions and answers. If you have other questions about your upcoming visit, feel free to contact us. We want to make your appointment as enjoyable as possible!