Optimal Health Physicians strives to establish a partnership between providers and patients that fosters open communication, mutual understanding, respect and responsibility. The very nature of our practice, therefore,generates large volumes of communication and exchange of information among practitioners, patients, staff, laboratories, pharmacies and a wide range of other collaborating health care individuals and organizations. We believe that managing this flow of information efficiently is vital to quality care and requires that not only OHP devote significant resources to patient support and communication, but also that our patients adhere closely to the policies and procedures described below.
Emergencies and Urgent Matters
During normal working hours, telephone receptionists will transfer any caller who declares his/her need as an emergency or medically urgent matter directly to administrative and professional staff. During non-working hours patients with medical emergencies and urgent medical matters may call Dr. Fishman on his cellular phone at 240.750.9010.
Clinical Questions
Our staff strives to bring all of your questions and requests promptly to your doctor's attention. Many questions you have about your care can be answered with a quick check by our nurse with your doctor, and a nurse call back. Concerns about changes in your health, new or different symptoms or thoughts you may have forgotten to discuss require more time to consider.
Again, to avoid multiple calls and phone tag, please make a written note for yourself before you call. This will help you to succinct and thorough in your message.
Routine Phone Hours
OHP's phones are answered from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Thursday, and 9 am to 1 pm on Fridays. During non-working hours all calls are routed to a voice message system that allows callers to leave detailed messages in voicemail boxes specific to their needs.
Telephone Messages
OHP receives more than 2,500 phone calls each month. During normal business hours (9am-5pm, M-Th; 9am-1pm), all calls to our main phone number 301.330.9430 are answered by a team of telephone receptionists whose responsibility is to direct calls in the most efficient manner. Our receptionists' job to ascertain the nature of callers' needs and either pass calls to the most appropriate administrative or professional staff, or ask callers to leave messages in one of our voicemail locations. Our voicemail center includes specific locations for clinical, testing, prescription, and administrative messages. Each voicemail location includes instructions regarding the specific information that callers must include for efficient processing of requests.
OHP staff monitor the voicemail center, summarizes message content, and gathers related medical charts and documents needed for appropriate action and follow-up response. Even a seemingly simple inquiry requires significant staff coordination to ensure timely, accurate responses. Because physicians' time is at such a premium, staff prepare physician messages for review at scheduled times. Some questions can be answered with a quick look at a chart; others require the physician to pull together myriad sources of information and consider multiple responses including phone consultations or office visits to provide in-depth discussions. To expedite any message and avoid "telephone tag," please:
• Leave complete, detailed messages following the instructions you will hear introducing the voicemail location; especilally phone number(s) and times when you can be reached.
• Do not leave multiple messages on the same topic or in different mailboxes - this triggers multiple processes and potentially delays responses while several staff members are working on similar, overlapping messages.
• Allow adequate time for OHP response - non-urgent requests or questions may require several day for a response.
Prescriptions
Physicians prescribe medications with the intent that their patients will use those medicines as prescribed to gain the greatest advantage of their use. We strongly urge our patients to be diligent about taking their medications as prescribed.
When prescriptions are written, the physician indicates a number of refills. When the refills have expired, the physician must renew the prescription. When, a physician visit is required prior to any such renewal.
Generally, patients should be seen every six months to maintain prescription renewals. This is especially true of medications for pain, sleep, heart conditions, hormone therapy, sedatives and antibiotics.
Please monitor your medication supply, refill expirations and renewal dates. We request that you have an appointment to see your doctor prior to expiration of your medications.
In an emergency, if you have run out of a medication or are about to, we require a minimum of three workdays to process your request, which includes a physician review of your request and approval of a renewal. Such an emergency renewal will be for a limited time and will require a follow-up physician visit for full renewal.
We prefer to expedite prescription renewals via fax from your pharmacy. It is important that you provide our fax number to your pharmacy.
Test Results
The purpose of laboratory and diagnostic testing is to provide useful information to medical practitioners concerning your specific condition. When test results are within the expected ranges for the individual patient, patients usually will not be contacted with such results. Rather, a medical practitioner will review these results with you at your next visit.
If the results pose a concern, a medical practitioner will contact you promptly. Results about which your are especially concerned, even if non-urgent, can be provided to you within two working days after you notify us of your request. Our physicians must review all lab and test results prior to releasing them to you, other physicians or practitioners, or other organizations.