Office Visit Plans
How we handle visits to our office in the era of COVID-19. Updated periodically.
The growth of COVID-19 has accelerated through the fall and into the winter. Vaccination has begun for healthcare workers. As we venture from months in hibernation, it is important that we do so carefully. We will update this post periodically to reflect changes in our office plans.
For patients due for lab testing, immunizations, or office visits, we will review each upcoming appointment to assess the risk and benefit of proceeding versus delay. When lab testing is necessary, we do recommend that patients come to us as we feel we can better protect them in our building and office than at a lab draw station. We will coordinate individually with each patient based on their unique circumstances and will we may delay some routine testing. If you have questions, please reach out to us and we will discuss our plans.
We have returned to our usual office schedule (07:00 - 16:00 weekdays). But we will continue to see patients by appointment only as we will be spacing visits to minimize interactions between patients.
Masks are required to enter our office building and in the elevator. We are cleaning the handle on the door to our office frequently and will have alcohol hand gel available as you enter our office.
There is a significant concern about the spread of coronavirus from people who feel perfectly well, and we are making changes to minimize that risk. Regardless of vaccination status, we will ask all patients, physicians, and office staff to wear masks for all patient encounters. Gloves are not useful in this situation, but hand washing is important.
When you arrive in our office, we will ask you to use hand sanitizer gel. We will also wear a mask while you are in our office. The mask you are wearing is to protect us, and the masks we will wear are to protect you. This will be our policy regardless of vaccination status.
When leaving our office, we recommend that you call the elevator and select the ground floor with a car key or other object (to avoid touching the elevator buttons).
These steps may seem excessive, but we want to do everything possible to protect our patients, staff, and physicians.
More information about our practice is available on our website.