VISIT INFORMATION
NEW PATIENTS
DIABETIC PATIENTS
MISSED APPOINTMENTS
LAB RESULTS
PRESCRIPTION REFILLS
COMMUNICATION WITH US
INSULIN PUMP THERAPY
FORMS AND RECORD RELEASE

In order to provide the very best medical care for your child with the time constraints of an office visit, the following practices are needed:

Visit Information for ALL patients

1. HMO members: must have a Referral. If you do not have it, your child will not be seen unless your visit is paid in full at the time of appointment. NO EXCEPTIONS!
2. Bring your most current insurance card with active effective date to every visit.
3. Lab work MUST be completed at least one week before visit.
4. Bring in all medications.
5. Know the refill status of medications. Please ask your pharmacy to fax refill authorization forms to the office to avoid several phone calls. We will no longer authorize refills by phone.
6. Please have all of your questions written down that you would like to discuss with the doctor.
7. Attempt to arrange childcare for young siblings.

Visit information for NEW patients (including above)

1. Bring or fax all lab work, bone age x-ray results, and growth charts. Your pediatrician will have this information.
2. Please arrive 15 minutes prior to appointment time.
3. Please complete all forms that were mailed to you prior to arrival.

Visit information for DIABETIC patients (including above).

1. Bring in ALL glucose meters (including school or daycare meter).
2. Please periodically check date & time in meters.
3. Bring in glucose logbook.
4. Record time, glucose, and insulin in log book.
5. When faxing BG’s you must use office forms. Please remember to add school numbers to your list from home to allow for proper insulin adjustment. The physicians will not evaluate BG’s unless they are in proper format. If not, we will ask you to rewrite the information and refax. We are unable to accept BG’s by phone unless it is an emergency. If there is an emergency call 911. If your child is sick and you need to speak to someone immediately call the office. If it is after hours, the doctor on call will be paged.
6. For appointments scheduled May-August, please bring in school/camp forms (remember, $15 fee for each set!) For the teens, this also includes MVA forms. We cannot send these forms without the medical release form completed. (see policy effective June, 2004)
7. Bring nutrition labels of favorite foods.

MISSED APPOINTMENTS

If you cannot make your appointment, you must cancel within 24 hours.

If you are a “no show” for three consecutive appointments, it is our discretion as to whether or not we will schedule your child again. This is due to the high volume of patients that need to be seen.

We understand that illness and unforseen circumstances arise. Please be courteous and notify the office as soon as possible. If you cancel your child’s appointment, we will do our best to fit you in as soon as possible which may be next available.

If you have not been seen by Dr. McLaughlin or Dr. Armour in over one year, prescription refill request will not be routinely authorized until appointment is made. We will then authorize until that appointment date. If that appointment is canceled or you are a “no show”, no further prescription authorizations will be made. You will then need to contact your primary care doctor’s office.

Please understand that your child may need to miss school for the appointment. The majority of our patients are school age with chronic health problems, which require appointments 3-4 times a year. Please try to be flexible. Appointments are usually scheduled months in advance to allow ample to time to make arrangements with school and work.

LAB RESULTS

Lab work that was requested at your last visit must be completed at the date that the physician requests. Lab work must be done at least two weeks prior to your next scheduled appointment. If it is not received by the time of your visit, your appointment may be canceled at your physicians discretion and you will have to reschedule for the next available appointment.

This policy has been put into affect for several reasons.

1. If your physician has all labwork and xrays at the time of your visit, your child will benefit from a complete exam and evaluation at that time. Otherwise, your physician will need to await lab results and notify you at a later date of complete outcome.
2. This will also help to expedite your receipt of lab results for your child.

If you had your child’s lab work completed under a different physician’s name, ie. your pediatrician, gastroenterologist, etc, you are then responsible for having those results faxed to us or bring a copy with you to your visit. We are unable to track down results when you are here for your visit if the results that are not listed under Dr. McLaughlin or Dr. Armour.

The ideal situation for notification of lab results:

If labs are done two weeks prior to your appointment, you will receive the results at your visit.

If not done prior to appointment, you will receive results either by phone or letter. If lab results are critical (highly abnormal) or requiring immediate intervention, you will be notified ASAP. If not, you will be notified in the order that they were received.

COMMUNICATION WITH US

In our practice, there is a physician on call 24 hours a day who is available for emergencies. Calls after hours should be for problems that cannot wait until the next business day. Holding your routine calls until regular office hours will be to your benefit. The physician will have access to medical records and details that they may not remember without having the chart in front of them and will be able to answer your specific question. We will not provide routine prescription refills after hours.
We have an answering service that takes all after hour calls. If you are having an emergency or there is an urgent need that cannot wait until the office is open, please be very specific in conveying the message. The answering service operators are not medical staff, but are trained to triage our calls.

FORMS AND RECORD RELEASE

The completion of administration forms about your case and duplication of medial records is not a part of your routine medical services from us.
The first copy of medical records is complimentary. We are happy to assist you in any way that we can, but we reserve the right to charge appropriately for these extra services, depending upon the time of effort involved in completing the forms or duplicating records. (See policy effective June 1, 2004.)

Downloadable Forms

PRESCRIPTION REFILLS

Routine prescription refills will be done my fax only. If your prescription has expired, please call your pharmacy and have them fax a refill authorization form. Your physician will sign and refax within 5 business days.

INSULIN PUMP THERAPY

When starting an insulin pump, there needs to be an enormous commitment from parents and most importantly the child. The following is a criteria list that must be met prior to starting insulin pump therapy.

• Pump initiation will not be considered until one year after initial diagnosis.
• Monitoring and recording blood sugars at least 4 times per day for 6 months. Including faxing this information to the office.
• Carbohydrate counting.
• Child and parents expressing desire for insulin pump.
• Evidence of contact with the office in urgent and emergency situations.
• Ability to make small adjustments in treatment regimen approprately in between visits.
• Ability to give abdominal injections.
• Diabetes ID bracelet

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