What To Bring To The Hospital
Patients must bring their picture identification and insurance card to the Admitting Office. If staying overnight, please leave all your valuable items (jewelry, etc.) at home.
Medical Insurance
Many insurance companies require that you pre-certify for certain medical procedures. Check your policy or contact your insurance provider to ensure that physician and hospital services are properly authorized.
As stated in your contract with your insurance company, your co-pay and/or deductible is your responsibility and will be collected by St. Francis Hospital at the time of service. If you are unsure of your co-pay and/or deductible responsibility, contact your insurance provider at the 800-number provided on your insurance card.
Self-Pay Patient Discount
To ensure community-wide access to its services, St. Francis Hospital provides the same average price discount to self-pay patients as it gives to commercial insurance companies.
Currently, self-pay patients receive a 60 percent discount on bills for our hospital services. Payment or satisfactory arrangements must be made within 60 days.
“Self-pay” refers to patients who have the ability to pay for hospital services but lack medical insurance and do not qualify for financial assistance.
This discount does not apply to established prices for self-pay services that are not covered by insurance, such as bariatric surgery and plastic surgery. Also, this discount does not apply to co-pays or deductibles for patients with medical insurance.
For more information about our Self-Pay Patient Discount, please contact our financial counselors at 253-396-6700.
Uninsured/Underinsured Patient Discounts
St. Francis Hospital provides medical care for everyone who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay. Our policy for Uninsured/Underinsured Patient Discounts (also called charity care or financial assistance) is based on the individual’s financial ability, or inability, to pay the balance of his/her hospital bill.
We use the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s “Geographic Very Low Income Guidelines” to determine a patient’s eligibility for charity care. Patients can qualify to have up to 100 percent of his or her hospital bill forgiven.
Patients with some health insurance may still qualify for charity care because of their limited annual income. These individuals are often referred to as “underinsured.”
Patients who qualify typically have no income or only a very limited income; no medical insurance or inadequate medical insurance; and no ability to pay for the hospital services they need.
For more information about our Uninsured/Underinsured Patient Discount, please call 253-396-6700. All inquiries are considered private and confidential.
Bills For Medical Services
St. Francis Hospital and Franciscan Health System are committed to helping you understand your hospital bill.
Your hospital bill will reflect whatever your insurance does not pay.
After your insurance company has reviewed your bill and paid for, or denied, its portion, we will bill you for your part of the bill. Most insurance companies require patients to pay part of their hospital bills View your bill online.
Questions about your health insurance
Please contact your insurance company for questions about your insurance.
Questions about your hospital bill
Please contact the hospital’s billing office at 253-396-6700 for help with:
• Applying for free or discounted care
• Applying for Medicaid, Basic Health, the state’s high-risk pool, or other insurance programs
• Getting answers to questions about your bill
Questions about bills from other providers
You will receive separate bills from each physician involved in your care, including your regular doctor, the radiologist (if you had X-rays and other diagnostic-imaging procedures), your surgeon, assistant surgeon and anesthesiologist (if you had surgery) and other specialists. Your hospital bill does not include these charges, nor does the hospital submit the insurance claims for their payment. Please contact the physician’s office directly with any questions about physician charges.
Following is a list of the groups that Franciscan Health System regularly works with. If you receive a bill from them and have questions about the bill, please contact them directly:
Ambulance
American Medical Response
1-800-542-7701
253-584-7574 (Pierce County)
206-444-4444 (King County)
Rural Metro Ambulance
1-800-989-9993
Tri-Med Ambulance
1-888-487-4633
Anesthesia
Sound Anesthesia
253-274-1642
Emergency Room Physicians
Team Health ER Physicians
1-888-952-6772
Pathology
Puget Sound Institute of Pathology
1-800-234-7224
Radiology
Tacoma Radiological Associates
253-383-0505
Click to see frequently asked questions about billing.
Visiting Hours
Regular visiting hours are from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily for all areas of the hospital, except the Mental Health unit.
Visitors to the Mental Health unit are welcome from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
If you are undergoing surgery, a member of the hospital’s Volunteer Department staff will often be available to keep your relatives and friends informed about your condition.
After regular visiting hours, visitors to the hospital must enter through the Emergency Department and check in at the nurse station. From there, a security officer escorts visitors to the patient’s room.
Children under 12 should be accompanied by an adult when visiting the hospital.
Visitors may be required to follow certain procedures, depending on the condition of the patient. The nurse staff will provide specific instructions for visiting these patients.
Patient/Facility Directory
St. Francis Hospital protects the private health information of our patients. We follow federal privacy standards for healthcare information that were established by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.
The following information about patients is provided in the Facility Directory: Patient’s name; patient’s location within the hospital; patient’s condition described in brief terms (satisfactory, serious, critical, etc.) that do not communicate specific medical information.
Patients have the right to “opt out” of the Facility Directory but cannot “pick and choose” who can be informed about their presence in the hospital. For patients who choose not to be listed in the Facility Directory, the hospital staff will tell callers and visitors who inquire about the patient: “We have no information available on a patient by that name.”
For patients choose to be listed in the Facility Directory, information about them will be released only to individuals who ask for the patient by his/her first and last names.
A patient may change his/her decision to be included in or excluded from the Facility Directory.
Free Web Pages For Patients, Families, And; Friends
Patient and family Web pages are Internet based tools that allow patients or their families to build web pages that keep family and friends updated on developments in the patient's condition and treatment.
The web pages are easy to access and navigate. They can display photos and information, and allow visitors who have been invited to leave messages for the patient.
The links below will take you to websites that allow you to create free patient web pages:
Chapel
Located on the first floor of St. Francis Hospital, the Chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for prayer, worship, meditation and reflection for people of all faiths. Catholic Mass is regularly offered.
Pastoral/Spiritual Care
Our chaplains are available to address emotional and spiritual issues. Their services include individual and group consultations, prayer support and referrals to spiritual resources upon the patient’s discharge by the hospital.
Parking
Free parking is provided for patients and visitors in parking lots on the hospital’s campus.
Security officers are available upon request to escort visitors and others to their vehicles.
Telephones
A telephone is located in each patient’s room.
• For local calls, dial 9 and then the phone number.
• For long-distance calls, dial 9, followed by 0, the area code, and the phone number.
All long-distance calls must be collect, or charged to the caller’s home phone number or credit card. The hospital does not provide free long-distance phone service.
Pay phones are located at several locations in the hospital.
Facility Maps
Maps of the hospital and its campus are available at several locations in the hospital, including the main lobby.
Interpreters
Interpreters are provided for our patients when necessary. When you arrive at the hospital, please notify the patient-care staff of your need for an interpreter.
Patient Advocates
Customer satisfaction is a top priority at St. Francis Hospital. Our patient advocate works with the hospital’s managers and supervisors to respond to, and seek resolutions for, concerns and complaints expressed by our patients.
Patient Satisfaction
We constantly measure our patients’ satisfaction with the medical care and services they receive, while also seeking ways we can improve how we meet their expectations. As a patient or former patient, you may be asked to respond to a questionnaire designed to gauge your level of satisfaction with our hospital. We hope you will take the few minutes required to complete the survey. Your comments are important to us. Customer satisfaction is one of our top priorities.
Patient Safety
Patient safety is another of our hospital’s primary goals. We strive to ensure that those who entrust their care to us receive the care they need in the safest environment possible.
Safety Hotline: Please call our Patient Safety Hotline at 253-426-6289 if you have concerns about safety. Concerns about patient safety or care in the hospital that the hospital has not addressed may be referred to the Joint Commission Office of Quality Monitoring at 1-800-994-6610.
Food/Meals
Our patients are provided meals that are approved by a team of healthcare professionals and prepared with their treatment and recovery in mind.
Cafeteria -- Visitors to the hospital may purchase snacks or hot meals in the Cafeteria, located on the First Floor. The Cafeteria is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
Cafeteria menu
Vending Machines – Vending machines containing soft drinks and various snack foods are located near the Cafeteria.
Gift Shop
The Gift Shop is on the First Floor, near the main lobby. It is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday. The Gift Shop is closed on Sunday.
Pharmacy
A pharmacist is on duty at the hospital 24 hours a day to fill the pharmaceutical needs of our inpatients.
Also, most prescriptions can be filled and over-the-counter drugs obtained at the Franciscan Pharmacy on the hospital’s first floor. The retail pharmacy is open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday to serve patients and the public. The phone number is 253-944-4040.
Housekeeping Services
Our environmental services staff ensures that the hospital provides patients and their visitors with a clean, safe and pleasant environment. We strive to maintain an atmosphere that will benefit the health and well being of our patients, staff and visitors.
Volunteers
Volunteers donate their time to help make the hospital more comfortable and pleasant for patients and visitors.
Cash Machine
A cash machine is located in the main lobby, near the Gift Shop.
Newspapers
Newspapers are available for purchase from news boxes located outside the entrance to the hospital’s main lobby.
Lost And Found
Lost and found items are taken to the hospital’s Security Office.
Fire Safety
If you hear a fire alarm within the hospital, please remain calm and stay where you are until you are given specific directions. If any action is needed, our staff will advise you about where to go. We often hold fire drills to test our fire-safety equipment and to make sure the staff knows what to do in a fire emergency.
Tobacco-Free Environment
For the health and safety of our patients, visitors and employees, the use of tobacco products is not allowed on the hospital’s property. Cigarettes and other tobacco products are known causes of cancer and other fatal diseases. If you are interested in nicotine-replacement therapy, please talk with your doctor. To join our Freedom From Tobacco Support Group, call 253-426-6746.
You can also get help quitting tobacco by calling the Washington State Tobacco Quitline at 1-877-270- STOP, or 1-877-2NO-FUME (Spanish).
Bill Calculator
It’s important that you know approximately how much your hospital bill could be for your surgery and other medical procedures.
The information provided on this website is only a best estimate. It is not a guarantee of what you will be charged.
Actual charges will depend upon several factors, such as length of time spent in surgery or recovery; the number of days spent in the hospital; unexpected conditions or complications, etc.
Also, your hospital bill will not include charges by physicians who are involved in your care. They will bill you separately.
Bill Calculator
Cellular Phones
Patients and visitors may quietly use personal cellular phones inside the hospital so long as the devices do not interfere with patient privacy or the hospital’s healing environment.
We Do Not Discriminate
Franciscan Health System is committed to excellence every day as part of our healing ministry. We do not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in admission, treatment or participation in our programs, services and activities.
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