-Take Highway 100 south to Cedar Lake Rd exit veer immediately right onto
Cedar Lake Rd and take 1st right into 1st driveway. This takes you into the
West Parking lot of the building.
-If you come in the west building entrance the west elevator is to your
right. Take that to the 3rd floor and go right to suite 338.
From the South (i.e. Bloomington, Burnsville)
-Take 494 to Highway 100 north.
-Take Highway 100 north to 25 1/2 St./Cedar Lake rd exit.
-Stay straight and loop around right to Cedar Lake Rd. around the old car
dealership passing Life Time Fitness on the left.
-At the stop light take a right onto Parkdale Drive.
-Turn left into the last driveway entrance on the road prior to the ramp for
Highway 100 South, Parkdale Plaza Building.
-Go straight to the open parking lot to the west of the building. You can
also go right around the building to the free east parking ramp. If you come in
the west building entrance the west elevator is to your right. Take that to the
3rd floor and go right to suite 338.
From the East (i.e. St Paul, Woodbury)
-Take 94 west to 394 west.
-Take the Xenia-Park Place Blvd exit.
-Take a left onto Park Place Blvd.
-Turn left onto Parkdale Drive.
-Turn left into the last driveway entrance on the road prior to the ramp for
Highway 100 South, Parkdale Plaza Building.
-Go straight to the open parking lot to the west of the building. You can
also go right around the building to the free east parking ramp. If you come in
the west building entrance the west elevator is to your right. Take that to the
3rd floor and go right to suite 338.
From the West (i.e. Minnetonka, Wayzata)
-Take 394 east to Xenia-Park Place Blvd. exit.
-Take a right onto Park Place Blvd.
-Turn left onto Parkdale Drive.
-Turn left into the last driveway entrance on the road prior to the ramp for
Highway 100 South, Parkdale Plaza Building.
-Go straight to the open parking lot to the west of the building. You can
also go right around the building to the free east parking ramp. If you come in
the west building entrance the west elevator is to your right. Take that to the
3rd floor and go right to suite 338
Alternate directions:
You may follow the above directions but take a left on Gamble Drive, prior to
Parkdale Drive.
-Turn right into the last driveway entrance for 1660 Highway 100 South,
Parkdale Plaza Building.
-There is limited short-term parking in front of the building, north side,
also just to the west in an open lot. Go into the building entrance and veer to
the right towards the west elevator.
TO AVOID TRAFFIC DURING CONSTRUCTION YOU CAN GET OFF 394 AT LOUISIANA AND USE
THE SOUTH FRONTAGE RD COMING EAST TO GET TO CEDAR LAKE RD. YOU CAN ALSO TAKE
THE 1ST LEFT OFF OF XENIA TO THE FRONTAGE RD AND LOOP AROUND TO THE BUILDING ON
GAMBLE DRIVE.
Parking:
You may park as noted above on the West side of the building or in the Free
parking ramp on east side of building. Exit arm will rise automatically as you
near the exit.
Why a cash practice?
My colleague Lee Beecher expresses this eloquently in the
article below:
Opting Out of Insurance Provider Agreements
Minnesota physicians are addicted to health plan provider agreements. This
addiction is rooted in a "Financial Anxiety Disorder" not listed in
the diagnostic tomes of DSM1V or ICD9. We doctors ask our patients, "What
is your insurance?" They ask us, "Do you take my insurance?" And
when considering treatment options, consultations, and referrals, we ponder,
"What will insurance pay, and which doctors or facilities are in the
insurance provider network?"
Charles Meyer, MD, editor of Minnesota Medicine eloquently described his
frustration in finding a psychiatrist for his patient in his January 2007
editorial [1.] He described a patient in his clinic who needed psychiatric
care, but because no outpatient psychiatrist was available the patient ended up
in the hospital after going to an ER. Psychiatrists have not disappeared, but
Dr. Meyer and his patient couldn't find one in the patient's insurance provider
network. Why is this?
Insurance provider agreements set the financial terms, define "medical
necessity," and pay doctors money for "performance" in meeting
corporate financial goals These may create a conflict of interest with our
patients? need for care. In addition, the insurance corporations often decide
if we are to be paid and how much, usually after we have provided a medical
service. Recall the scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet when the prince recedes with
his father's ominous ghost. The officers call out to warn him and one cries,
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!" [2] Well, something is
rotten in the state of Minnesota when good physicians such as Dr. Meyer feel
powerless to practice good medicine. It stinks when doctors subordinate our
professional judgments to insurance companies by relying on them to define our
professional practices and the options for our patient referrals.
I decided to get my psychiatric practice off the managed care treadmill in 2005
[3]. The health plans wanted me to do 10-15 minute medication checks or sign up
as a subcontractor for a behavioral health care carve-out company, who'd then
crowd my schedule with their "referrals" for medication checks. Even
if I went this route, the prospects looked bleak for economic survival for my
practice. Such a forced "production model" drives many Minnesota
psychiatrists. The number of services we provide translates into our pay. Yet,
what patients want from me is a trust-building doctor-patient relationship. The
number of services necessary can vary since such a relationship takes time,
patience, and work based on years of my medical training and experience. Yet,
when I was a managed care medical director and studied psychiatric utilization
patterns, we found no evidence of overutilization of mental health benefits by
patients or psychiatrists.
I also decided that insurance corporation "pay-for-performance"
programs, based on compliance with disease-based treatment algorithms,
compromised my professional ethics. There is simply too much individual
variation in psychiatric practice to use treatment guidelines as a valid
measure of treatment competence. During my tenure as an MCO medical director I
came to realize that the mission was cost reduction and not quality assurance.
Would I allow insurance companies to manipulate me to practice medicine in a
way, which does not meet my professional standards? How could a corporate
business manager know how to measure the severity and complexity of my
patients' illnesses, describe optimal patient care, or predict care outcomes? I
knew this to be false. So, I decided to opt out of insurance provider
agreements in 2005. Meanwhile I continue to help my patients generate the paper
work to get the money they are due from their insurance plans. My professional
paper work, clinical notes and correspondence, is devoted to documenting my
patients? processes in care and progress. I give my patients copies of my
clinical notes. I safeguard patients' privacy by requiring their consent to release
any information to third parties.
How do Minnesota health plan corporations maintain power over our profession?
HMO law[4] allows them to control use of and contract for the benefits they
insure?a perverse power and conflict of interest allowed no other provider of
casualty insurance. Remember, these corporations were created to ration
employer or government agency sponsored benefits by controlling patient access
to care. They similarly are arbitrators of access to care for many Minnesota
public sector patients as well (Medicaid, PMAP, MCHA, and MinnesotaCare).
In MN three huge corporations control most of the insurance market as an
oligopsony of Medica, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (BCBSM) and
HealthPartners (HPI). One, BCBSM, insures most out-state Minnesotans as well.
With only a few insurers, Minnesota has a situation where a few large companies
exert a disproportionate influence on the health care insurance market. Our
patients need many more insurance company options as well as more types of
coverage options. But doctors also have an option?they can stop contracting
with the corporations who now control health care delivery in Minnesota.
Employer and state agencies asking for bids from HMOs to service their
clientele have until now been concerned mainly about cost containment. But
managed care corporations have failed to control premium costs. And employers
have become openly skeptical about the ability of these corporations to do
their cost-containing business. The result is that many large corporations have
elected to avoid the MCOs by self-insuring employee health care?an option not
as feasible for small firms. Governor Pawlenty has also voiced skepticism about
the ability of managed care organizations to control costs and ensure quality
care in public sector programs.
I came to realize that my practice, like the private sector business firms who
contract with Minnesota health plans, was addicted to health insurance
contracts that were not in the best interests of patients in terms of access,
cost, and quality. Moreover the viability of my practice was in doubt. So I
really had to opt out of provider agreements with insurance companies in order
to survive professionally. My psychiatric practice is small, and I received
assurances from my patients that they wanted personal care at a fair price.
But how many Minnesota physicians or large clinics are willing to forsake
contracts with a managed care corporation if it would threaten a third or more
of income? Opting out of an insurance provider contract can jeopardize the very
existence of any clinic. That is what I did. Scary? Yes, Fulfilling of my
personal and professional goals? Not scary at all. My decision was easier
perhaps because my specialty of psychiatry has been especially marginalized by
managed care companies. We are the canary in the coal mine for the practice of
health care rationing by managed care companies.
The future of family medicine, pediatrics and general internal medicine is also
in the grip of addiction to insurance provider agreements. Moreover, the
financial health of any medical practice that depends on cognitive work with
patients, rather than generating procedures, is in jeopardy. If we have the
courage to shake our addiction to insurance provider agreements and think
outside the box, we will be able to work towards real quality improvement in
our medical practices. Strategies to do this will require a dialog with our
true customers, our patients. Let's not buy into a guilt trip of reneging on
our social altruism because patients need services. Instead, let's reform the
insurance and get money for poor patients and collaboration with doctors for
all patients. We do have the financial resources in America to allow patients
access to physician's care. But is patients, not doctors, that need insurance
contracts. Let's stop working for insurance companies and give up addiction to
provider agreements.
Lee H. Beecher, MD
http://doctor.medscape.com/LEEBEECHERMD Psychiatrist in private practice, Saint
Louis Park, MN. Immediate past-president Minnesota Physician-Patient Alliance
www.physician-patient.org Adjunct professor of psychiatry University of
Minnesota.
1. Charles Meyer, MD, (Editor's Note) A Broken System, Minnesota Medicine
Volume 90, No. 1, January 2007
2. William Shakespeare [Hamlet (I, iv, 90)].
3. Lee H. Beecher, MD, Switching to a Cash Practice, Minnesota Physician,
November 2006
4. HMO Act of 1973. US Code chapter 42 subch. XI 330e.
Emergencies/After hours/Prescription Refills
AFTER HOURS: please utilize the office voice mail system or
secure messaging through iHealth (for non-urgent matters)Leave a message in my
confidential voice mail box. I do check messages after hours. If it is an
urgent call that cannot await a call back please utilize the Hennepin County
Acute Psychiatric services number- 612-873-3161. If you have a life threatening
emergency call 911.
MEDICATION REFILLS: Please call your pharmacy and have them FAX your request to
my office at 952-224-0152. Prescription refill FAXes will be reviewed,
approved, and returned to the pharmacy on the next work day. If you have
received a prescription at the office please use that.
An alternate option is to sign up for iHealth secure messaging which can also
enable refills to your pharmacy online.
Appointments
Please call the main office number, 952-224-0150, and I will
be happy to assist you. (or sign up for iHealth secure online messaging) If I
am not available please leave me a voice mail and I will get back to you as
soon as I can. It may be helpful to indicate some dates and times that fit your
schedule.
Evaluation appointments are typically 50 min but can be longer if the
complexity requires it.
Medication follow-up visits are scheduled for 25- 30 minutes. Psychotherapy visits are 45 minutes.
Nutrition Dynamics/Supplements
Now you can purchase nutritional supplements through Dr.
Sawyer utilizing Nutrition Dynamics and their highly reputable Metagenics
products. You can go directly to their website:
www.nutritiondynamics.us
and order using Dr.Sawyer's provider number: 111462
You may also call them at 763-479-3444.
Please feel free to discuss any needs you may have with Dr. Sawyer.
Herbal Remedies
For reputable herbal products you may wish to utilize Gaia
Herbs as an excellent source.
