COVID-19
Hope your families and you are staying safe during this pandemic.
For the past month, I have mainly been seeing patients through telemedicine visits
While I can learn a lot from a telemedicine call, nothing replaces the ability to physically examine a patient and confirm a diagnosis.
I think Pulmonary, Allergy and Sleep Medicine is a particularly difficult specialty for telemedicine since so much of it involves listening to lungs, looking into the nose, and checking settings on a CPAP/BIPAP. There is really no way to look in someone’s nose over a video chat or to listen to their lungs through a phone call, it is not the same as in person!
I have started seeing patients in my office, with the following heightened safety measures in place:
- All patients must bring and wear a mask the entire time they are in the office. Cloth or other home-made masks are acceptable. We have a very limited supply and cannot provide masks. Any patient who arrives without a mask will be turned away and rescheduled to a later appointment.
- No patients will stay in our waiting room. Please wait in your car with your cell phone. When called, you would come straight to the examination room.
- We will try to keep minimum number of patients in the office at one time.
- All patients must do their intake paperwork ahead of time. Also your copay, if any could also be collected ahead of time, we can take payments over the phone. New patients fill out information papers from our practice website.
- Only the patient is allowed in the office. For children and adult patients who require a caretaker, one adult may accompany the patient.
- Dr. Gill and staff will wear masks during all patient encounters.
- We are performing diligent hand washing and extra cleaning precautions.
PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE AHEAD OF TIME IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: fever, cough, shortness of breath, cold/flu symptoms, loss of smell/taste, and body aches.
Tele-medicine appointments will still be available for higher risk patients.
Please use the restroom at home prior to coming to the office. This would reduce your need to touch any door knobs.
Once again, I hope all of you and your families are staying safe and healthy during these strange times. Please call us with any questions at 516 741 0055
Warm Regards,
Dr. Gill and Staff
