Phone Call Policy:
To ensure quality and continuity of patient care, our physicians are directly available by phone for consultations by outside hospitals, labs, pharmacies, ancillary medical servers and other physicians. Individual patients of the practice may also have indirect contact with our physicians by phone via medically trained personnel.
Specifically, a patient may call any time day or night and speak to the physician’s medical assistant (liaison) who will triage the call and then relay the message to the physician on call. If the liaison is not immediately available, messages will be checked and returned within the hour. If your message is not returned, please call the office again.
For life-threatening emergencies please call 911 and proceed to the ER without delay. The ER physician or staff may then call our physicians as needed.
For urgent or emergent matters, the liaison will likely advise the patient to either come into the office or proceed to an urgent care or ER. The liaison will then notify the physician on call to expect a call from the ER if needed.
If the call involves a clinical question or non-urgent matter, the liaison will contact the physician on call as needed. It is then at the discretion of the physician to either call the patient directly or relay a message to the patient through the liaison which may include clarification of a medical question, approval of a pharmacy request, notification of test results, arrangement for an office appointment within 24 hours or directions to proceed to an urgent care or ER.
