Many of you may have seen that UVA is rescheduling many of its patients’ ambulatory office visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At Pediatric Associates, we have a fortunate situation that is very controlled and allows us to see well visits without any waiting in completely separate locations from our sick patients. We still feel that it remains important to provide on time vaccinations, and prevent yet another outbreak of something else when this is behind us.
We are taking many steps to ensure that our patients are kept safe.
Our west location will only be seeing well patients. Our North and Downtown locations have separate entrances for sick and well patients. We will also be splitting our Zions office to see only well visits in the morning and sick visits in the afternoon.
In addition, we will have dedicated staff and healthcare providers for well and sick patients. This will prevent them from having to go between well and sick patients and possibly exposing well patients to illness. As we work these schedules out, you may be asked to change your child’s appointment time or the healthcare provider they will be seeing.
In keeping with social distancing recommendations, we will be reaching out to families to consider rescheduling any well visits that do not include immunizations. Traditionally, all well visits through 2 years old, as well as 4, 11 and 12 year old well visits include immunizations and should be scheduled on time. Any other well visits may wait until later in the year. However, if you have concerns or issues that you would like to discuss at your well visit, we welcome you to keep your appointment.
We do ask that if your child is scheduled for a well visit and s/he or the caregiver bringing the child is experiencing any respiratory symptoms, that you reschedule the appointment.
As the data regarding the community transmission of COVID-19 in our area changes, this information may change as well. We will continue to work hard to keep you up to date with any changes that are made.
If you or someone you know are looking to give or receive help during this stressful time, check out https://www.supportcville.com/