Office: Policies

Monday to Friday - 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Major Holidays - Closed

Patients are seen by appointment only. You may call our office to schedule an appointment any time during normal business hours. Should you have any special issues or complex medical problems to discuss with the doctor, please inform our staff when making the appointment so that adequate time is allotted to address them. Time will be available each day for sudden illness and same-day sick visits.

Please arrive on time for your appointment. If you are more than 15 minutes late, you may be asked to reschedule. Please notify us 24 hours in advance if you must cancel or change your appointment time. Appointments cancelled or missed without sufficient notification hinder us from seeing other patients who may be ill. All missed or no show check up appointments will be charged a $50 fee. All other appointments missed or no show appointments will be charged a $25 fee.

Well-baby visits are conducted at 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, 24 months, and 30 months old. From 3 years of age, well visits should be scheduled annually.

We prefer that you make these appointments at the time of earlier visits. However, you may also call to schedule your appointment 2-4 weeks in advance. For routine yearly check-ups, pre-participation sports physicals, and adult annual exams, please schedule your appointment 2-4 weeks in advance. We recommend yearly check-ups for ideal preventative care and health maintenance.

Twelve month old well-baby visits, four year old check-ups, and eleven year old check-ups cannot be scheduled earlier than the age requirements. The vaccinations given during the above specific check-ups are mandated to be given after the 1st, 4th, and 11th birthday.

For our patients under the age of 18, if someone other than a parent or legal guardian must accompany them, we must have a completed Medical Authorization for Minors form on file stating the relationship of that person to the child and authorization for that person to approve any treatment that may be necessary.

All calls to the office will be returned as soon as we possibly can. Our medical assistants, nurses, and physicians return calls in the order of medical urgency.  You will be asked to leave a message and a telephone number where you can be reached. Please have a pharmacy number ready should we need to phone in a prescription.

We believe that our patients should have 24-hour access to medical advice should an urgent situation arise. We ask that after hours calls be limited to urgent medical issues that cannot or should not wait until the office reopens. All pediatric after-hours telephone calls will be answered by a specially trained pediatric nurse. In addition, one of our pediatricians or call partner pediatricians is on-call everyday and can be reached by the triage nurse for complex problems. An on-call internist is available for urgent medical issues for our adult patients. Calls handled by the pediatric nurse advice line are free to our patients. After-hours calls forwarded to and handled by a physician will incur a charge of $35 per call which will be applied to the patient’s account.

To reach the on-call pediatric nurse, please call our office and select option 1. Please allow 30 minutes for your call to be returned.

To reach the on-call internist, please call our office and select option 2. Please allow 30 minutes for your call to be returned.

Antibiotics are not prescribed over the phone. Since there are many things that can be wrong, our physicians prefer to examine each patient for proper diagnosis.

Prescription refill requests are handled most efficiently by calling your pharmacy directly to request a refill. If refills remain from the original prescription, the pharmacy simply fills your prescription. If there are no refills remaining, the pharmacy will contact our office for authorization to fill the prescription.

Refills on controlled substances, such as ADHD and some pain medications, can only be completed by a physician since they require a special secure process and require 2-4 business days to complete. Please give us adequate notification to complete these refills. If it has been more than 3 months since your last follow up visit, you may be required to come in for an office visit before your refill can be authorized. Please note that, by law, a prescription for a controlled substance must be filled within 21 days. Any prescription that needs to be reissued will incur a $5 fee.

All new requests for mail order prescriptions will be printed and given to the patient. It is the patient’s responsibility to submit the prescriptions along with the necessary forms to the mail order pharmacy. Refills for mail order prescriptions are typically requested by the pharmacy via fax and will be handled directly by our office. “Lost prescriptions” will incur a $5 fee to reissue.

Please remember that most tests take 2-5 business days for results to be reported to our office. All laboratory results will be reported once we receive the information from the laboratories. Afterwards, a copy of the results can be sent to you via secure text message. Additional printed copies requested will be subject to a $5 fee per request. Due to HIPAA policy, labs and studies cannot be sent via e-mail.

Laboratory results cannot be obtained after-hours and cannot be discussed with the on-call physician.

An updated shot record will be provided free of charge during every check up. Immunization records may also be sent via secure text. Any additional copies requested to be printed will be subject to a $5 fee per immunization record. Immunization records may be faxed with a verbal request from the adult patient or parent/legal guardian of the patient.

Please be advised that sports participation, camp and other school forms will only be completed if a complete check up or physical examination has been done in the past year. Due to the number of forms we receive, we require at least 2 business days for completion.

Affadavits, Disability Forms, Medical Certifications and Medicare Medical Necessity Certification are subject to a $30 fee and may need up to 4 business days for completion. FMLA forms are subject to a $40 fee and may need up to 4 business days to complete.

If you or your child needs to see a specialist, we will provide you with the names of excellent specialists in our community. Please refer to your insurance plan listing of participating providers to ensure that the specialist is in your plan network prior to making an appointment.

For patients with a HMO (health maintenance organization) plan, your insurance requires your primary care physician to authorize every specialist visit and requires us to have thorough documentation of the reason for the referral. If we do not have thorough documentation, your insurance can deny your visits and any procedures performed by the specialist. You may need to come in for an office visit before we can authorize the referral. Some referrals may take up to 1 week for submission and approval from your insurance company.

If your insurance plan requires approval or authorization for radiological imaging centers, specialized laboratories, therapists or other medical facilities, please inform our office prior to scheduling the appointment. We require 2 business days notice to facilitate these requests and cannot issue retroactive authorizations.

If you are moving or need a copy of your medical records for other purposes, please make you request at least 2 weeks in advance. An Authorization to Release Medical Information form must be signed prior to release and a $25 fee will be charged per record.

Because of privacy concerns, we will only fax medical records when requested by other physicians or medical facilities. Immunization records can be faxed with a verbal request from the adult patient or parent/legal guardian of the patient.

Each doctor has reserved time on Monday thru Friday, 11:30 am to 12:00 pm, to meet with parents-to-be and other prospective patients. These brief, complimentary appointments allow you to meet with one of our physicians and get a feel for our practice. We offer virtual or in person appointments. Finding the right physician for you and your family is important in providing your family with the medical and emotional support for the years to come.

As pediatricians, we advocate health prevention and the medical home. We believe in protecting children from vaccine-preventable diseases. However, we also acknowledge that immunizing your children is a choice.

We understand that as a parent today there are so many conflicting views on medical care, especially vaccinations. We encourage you to visit our patient education page and review the sites that we have found to be evidence-based and scientifically reviewed. We welcome any questions you may have about immunizations and we are willing to help you make vaccinating your child a well-informed decision.

Due to the increasing incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases, Piga Primary Care Associates will no longer accept new patients who are un-immunized or partially immunized based solely on parental preference or beliefs.