At Essential Dermatology, we’re committed to providing you with the best care possible. To help make your visit smooth and efficient, we offer patient forms for our Natick, Needham, and Marlborough offices that you can review and complete before your appointment. For your convenience, our forms are available online, allowing you to fill them out and submit them at any time. This helps us get your information quickly and lets us focus on what matters most—your care. Our dedicated dermatology team, including Dr. Michael Krathen and physician assistant Brooke, looks forward to meeting you soon!

Practice Policies

Prescription Refill and Prior Authorizations

PRESCRIPTION REFILLS

How to refill a prescription:

  1. Initiate refill through your pharmacy or Mass General Brigham Patient Gateway
  2. Call the office @ 508-827-2615: leave a message with the patient name and date of birth, drug name, strength and directions, and the preferred pharmacy (with name, address, telephone number).

Allow up to 3 business days to complete refill requests. For mail order and/or specialty pharmacy medication refills, allow up to 14 business days. Prescription refills may be denied if required laboratory testing is due, the refill is deemed inappropriate, in-office re-evaluation is required before refill, or if it has been greater than 1 year since the last office visit.

PRIOR AUTHORIZATIONS

Essential Dermatology, PLLC attempts to send the medically most appropriate medication for a patient’s condition. Typically, we also try to send, when medically appropriate, generic and (as best we know) insurance covered medication. However, due to constraints within the medical record system and the complexity of the numerous health insurance policies in the marketplace, Essential Dermatology does not always know up front which medication(s) will be covered nor at what cost. We strive to navigate insurance plan limitations while also prescribing the optimal therapy.

Often a given insurance requires a “prior authorization” or “denies” a specific prescription. In many cases we will switch the prescription to be sent to a third-party pharmacy “V-Care Pharmacy”, with locations in Chestnut Hill and Framingham, MA (contact telephone: (508) 202-9993), to expedite the approval process. Please respond to all phone calls from pharmacies to avoid delays in prescription acquisition. We attempt to process prior authorizations within 2 business days. Successfully achieving drug approval, however, can be prolonged, as many insurance companies intentionally delay the approval process. Battling with insurance companies on your behalf is resource intensive and often takes longer than both we and the patient would prefer. Please keep in mind we are working hard to help you. Nonetheless, if you have not heard any updates for 2 weeks regarding a drug approval, please feel free to contact us and check in on the status. It can also be helpful for the patient to express displeasure with a prescription benefits manager / carrier when a significant delay is present, to help facilitate approval. Rarely, an office visit may be required to address “prior authorization” concerns.   

Patient Provider Relationship and Code of Conduct

As a patient in our practice, we are committed to providing you with:

  • Care and treatment that is safe, thorough and compassionate
  • Care and treatment that is consistent with best practices
  • Attention to your concerns and respect for your preferences
  • Assistance with choosing sub-specialists when clinically appropriate
  • Fair and timely billing of our services
  • Clear, respectful and timely communication, including updates regarding your scheduled appointment times, with you and your caregivers
  • Care and treatment that will not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, marital status, citizenship, ethnicity, genetic or disease information, or any other characteristic protected by law. 

As a patient of our practice, we request the following:

  • On time arrival for your appointments
  • At least a one-business-day notification of any appointment cancellation, so we can offer the time to other patients in need
  • Informing us of any changes to your health, address or insurance information
  • Prompt payment for your visits
  • Respect and courtesy to our staff and clinical team.

The practice reserves the right to terminate the patient provider relationship in the event