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Payment and Insurance

You may have noticed that many doctors are rushed in the exam room (statistics say that on average we interrupt patients 18 seconds into their description of their chief complaint.) This is not because doctors do not care, but because insurance reimbursement and office overhead realities require a high level of "productivity" (i.e. many patients seen per hour, not necessarily excellent care provided) simply in order to keep the doors open.
We feel a patient must first be heard to be helped, so have elected to allow longer appointment times. One option we considered was to have a cash-only practice, as this would drop overhead considerably, but we feared this would make the practice inaccessible to many patients of more modest means. The compromise we struck was the Holistic Surcharge described below.

Holistic Surcharge

Most individual visits with Dr. Basch will involve a holistic surcharge, which is an additional fee ($30 - $60 in most cases) to cover the costs of the portion of the visit not covered by insurance, such as nutritional counseling and discussion of herbs and other complementary therapies. We think you will find that a visit with Dr. Basch is a "value-added" visit and that this is well worth it. Dr. Basch will generally address multiple issues at your visit, not just one, saving you time for return visits as well as additional copays.

If you are a cash-pay patient or on a high-deductible plan and paying for your full visit on the day of service, or if this surcharge will cause considerable financial hardship, communicate with us about that prior to your visit and we may consider waiving all or a portion of this fee.

Visits without a holistic surcharge:
  • Well Child visits
  • Group Medical Visits
  • Acupuncture visits

We recommend you schedule your annual with Dr. Basch and pay the surcharge if you wish for complex medical illness to be addressed during the visit, not just preventive care.

Payment of Patient-Responsible Portion of Medical Fees


Payment for copays and known non-covered services will be expected at the time of service; credit cards (Mastercard and Visa), as well as cash and personal checks, are accepted for patients’ convenience. If your check is returned to Full Circle for any reason, you will be charged a $30.00 fee for processing. Payment for other patient-responsible payments, including but not limited to coinsurance and deductibles, will be expected upon receipt of the invoice that will be sent out upon insurance communication of payment of the claim. Those balances remaining after 90 days may be subject to being sent to a collections company. If you have significant financial difficulty and are unable to pay your bill in full, please contact Full Circle immediately so that a payment plan can be worked out.

Participation With Insurance


Dr. Basch is a provider with the following health insurers and plans:

  • CIGNA / Great-West Healthcare
  • GEHA
  • HealthNet
  • United Healthcare
  • Tricare
  • Humana/ChoiceCare
  • InterPlan Health Group, Interplan Corp
  • Anthem/Blue Cross including Covered California Plans
  • Medicare
  • Blue Shield of California including Covered California Plans
  • MediCal

Credentialing is in process with:
Partnership for Health

We also accept self-payment for fee-for-service.

If you have a different insurance carrier and would like to see us, please contact the office and we will explore enrolling.
Insurance will be verified with each visit to ensure that patients are not saddled with unexpected health care bills.