Practice Policies
How to Reach Us During Business Hours
Call (845) 452-1700
Calls regarding non urgent appointments, prescription refills medications, billing problems and insurance questions will be handled by our front office staff.
Prescription renewals and non-urgent appointment requests may also be handled on-line through our practice web site. Questions concerning any of the above will be handled during regular business hours at (845) 452-1700 (8:30am-5:30pm, Monday-Friday). Acute or urgent medical problems will be discussed at any time. Routine medical oncerns such as dosages for common over-the-counter medications, simple first aid measures, fever control etc. will be screened by our office and or nursing staff.
More complex issues will be passed on to us for a return call by a clinician. Urgent calls will be returned immediately. Less urgent ones will be returned before the end of the morning or afternoon session when they were placed.
If you have a true emergency, call 911 immediately. If you feel that 911 is not necessary, but the situation is urgent, your call will be immediately directed to a physician.
How to Reach Us After Hours
If a problem arises outside of our normal office hours, there is a doctor on call 24 hours a day. During late night hours, calls will be returned by a highly trained pediatric nurse who will refer all significant problems to the emergency room or physician on call. If you must speak with the physician on call, please indicate that to the nurse. If you feel that you have a potentially serious or life threatening condition, call 911 immediately. If you feel that this is not necessary, please explain to the Pediatric Nurse that you feel that the problem is an emergency, and they will treat it as such. If you need to be seen at the start of office hours, the answering service can make a limited number of appointments if called before the office opens that morning.
How to Make the Most of Your Telephone Call
All phone calls should be directed to the office. Coverage is provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Things to tell your doctor or pediatric nurse when you call:
- Your child’s age.
- What you are concerned about, how long it has been going on and has it been getting worse.
- What you have done about your child’s illness.
- Your child’s temperature.
- Your child’s state of alertness.
- Your child’s intake of fluids
We pride ourselves on our availability to discuss urgent problems at any time. Should you have a true life threatening emergency, call 911 immediately. For anything else, please call us first. Use of hospital emergency rooms should be limited to such severe situations, or if you are directed to go there by the nurse or physician on call. In the majority of cases, you can call us and together we can decide how to approach the problem.
DON’T
- Hold a crying baby in your arms while trying to talk.
- Rely on your memory-have a pencil and paper handy before you call.
- Panic-in an emergency-it is difficult to help if you are excited and unable to give a history.
The staff and facilities for meeting your needs are obviously more limited at night than during the day. We encourage you to call if you have an urgent problem or are concerned. However, if the call is about a long standing problem (e.g. constipation, poor appetite, diaper rash, teething, etc.), or a medication refill, we would appreciate it if you would consider the possibility of calling in the morning when we are better able to serve you.