Communication

We believe that good communication between our patients and their doctors and office staff is essential to maintaining a high quality of patient care. Being able to discuss medical issues with your physician quickly and efficiently improves care and prevents small problems from becoming big ones. It helps keep people out of hospitals and helps prevent serious adverse medication effects.

Patients in this practice will have direct access to his or her physician for medical problems by way of cell phone and/or pager. There is no answering service to go through. There is no office voice mail that will be left for someone to hear hours later. Your calls will be answered immediately or at least within 30 minutes after you page by the physician you are trying to reach. We pride ourselves on rapidly returning phone calls and being very accessible to our patients. In the rare situation where you've had to wait more than 30 minutes, please page again until you get a response, or use the alternate phone number that you have been given.

You will be notified of laboratory and other test results on the day that we receive them.

If there are any changes in the schedule that will affect your appointment time, you will be notified as soon as possible.

Our office staff realize the importance of good communication as well and will provide whatever information of a non medical nature that you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We plan to use email for non urgent messages for those patients who prefer this. Email questions will be answered at least once a day. Email will be fully encrypted and as secure as the current technology will allow; although we will never use it for sensitive or critical types of communication. In those instances, a direct call or personal visit would be much more appropriate.

Using facsimiles is also a good method for sending non urgent information back and forth but it is sometimes unreliable. It may be helpful to let us know if you've faxed something to us so you can be sure that we have received it.

Part of our job as a medical office and as your physicians is to be sure you understand your medical diagnoses and why certain tests or treatments are necessary. We want you to know as much about your health as you can, and we are happy to explain these things in English without using a lot of confusing medical terminology. We will also provide whatever handouts, brochures or other resources that we may have available to help you understand your condition.

Communication should never be a stumbling block to receiving good medical care. Please don't hesitate to call us whenever necessary.