We Are Here For YouOur front office receives a lot of phone calls each day and we all try to be responsive to your questions or concerns while trying to minimize disruptions in our workflow. Soon, we hope to address online most of your non-urgent questions, refill requests and appointment requests so we can prioritize more urgent calls accordingly.

Here are some some tips to make the most of phone calls and e-mails:

• Avoid peak hours. Early mornings (8:30-9:30) and after school (3:00-5:00) are the busiest times for phone calls while Monday is the busiest day. Avoid these times when the nature of your call is not urgent so you’ll have better success in getting through and your message won’t be moved down the line by later messages.

• Emergencies. Please call 911 for life-threatening emergencies and Poison Control 1-800-222-1222 for accidental ingestions.

• Sick child calls. If your child is sick but you are not sure that it warrants an appointment, ask the receptionist if a doctor or nurse is available. If not, you may leave a message that is specific about the nature of the illness, what you have tried so far, how long the illness has been going on and if it is getting worse. Please provide a reliable means of contacting you (cell phone and landline). A nurse or doctor, preferably the one who is most familiar with your child, should be able to call within an hour. Have pen and paper ready so you won’t rely on memory for instructions for at-home treatment. Sometimes, you may be advised to make an appointment for an office visit.

• After hours. Just like during regular office hours, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room if you believe that your child has a life-threatening emergency. Call Poison Control (800-000-0000) for any accidental ingestions. For other urgent needs, call our office number (706-216-2771) and the answering service will page the practitioner. To get the best response, ask for the practitioner who saw your child most recently for the current illness. Ask for the one who is most familiar with your child if the call is regarding an illness that has not been addressed by anybody else. Please call again if you do not get any response within 30 minutes. Sometimes, the message doesn’t get through or the doctor is not able to call immediately. After 11:00 PM, the calls are routed to the Nurse Line of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a team of dedicated triage nurses well-trained to handle these kinds of calls. If, however, the nurse feels it is in your child’s best interest, she may direct you to the ER or send the call back to the appropriate doctor.

• Prescription refill calls. There are several ways of requesting prescription refills (calling your pharmacy is preferred, or by phone or e-mail). Please allow at least 24 hours for refills — so plan ahead so you don’t run out of medicines. With rare exceptions, we do not refill prescriptions we did not prescribe or are not familiar with, for patients that we have never seen or for patients that we have not seen within the past year.

• Non-urgent advice calls or e-mails. We encourage you to e-mail non-urgent questions or concerns that we can address during our down time. Allow 24-48 hours for us to respond. We also encourage you to write down any questions you may want to bring up for the next scheduled office visit and e-mail us so we can be as ready with the answers as much as possible. Please do not use e-mail for urgent concerns. It is not intended to replace or avoid an office visit that may be necessary. Also, try to get as much information from our health information pages when possible.

• Write down or e-mail questions. If you have questions that can wait until the next visit, please write them down and bring with you or you may e-mail us so we can try to prepare with a solution if available.