Patient Education and FAQ

How do I choose a Pediatrician and pediatric practice to care for my child or children?
Interviewing a pediatrician in person is a very important step toward making a selection of your child's doctor. Visiting the practice office will also allow you to make certain judgments about the accessibility of the location, professionalism of the office staff and other criteria that may influence your very important and personal decision.

The following information is presented as an opportunity to learn something about our medical practice's policies and medical philosophy before you visit.

What are some of the practice's special interests?
We enjoy taking care of infants, children and young adults from birth through college. Each age presents different challenges and rewards. Our twelve pediatricians, four nurse practitioners and entire staff are interested in all facets of children's health care, including but not limited to sports medicine, infectious disease, allergy, weight management and developmental-behavioral issues.

Does your practice use nurse practitioners?
Yes, we have several nurse practitioners on staff. Our nurse practitioners, Debbie, Kelly, Christine and Karen, are available to help you, under the doctors' supervision. They have been wonderfully received and are very much appreciated by those who have used them. As always, our patients are free to ask for the health care provider of their choice.

If your office is very busy and my child needs to be seen today, what is your policy?
We hope and expect that PAMPA can always provide the health care your child needs in a timely, sensitive and caring manner. When you call for an appointment, our secretaries will often ask one of our trained telephone nurses to call you back to offer advice and to get more detailed information about the nature of your problem in order to arrange the most appropriate appointment for you. Sick infants are seen quickly, although infants with more chronic problems may be seen within a day or two. Please share with our staff the appropriate details to assist them in scheduling a timely and appropriate appointment.

Will my child have a primary doctor or does he/she see whomever is handling sick patients that day?
We are a group practice with twelve pediatricians.  We have four office locations. Our patients are always welcome to see us in any of our locations; however, we encourage you to feel comfortable seeing any of our pediatricians or nurse practitioners for those occasions when a specific provider is "too far" from the office you usually visit. Sometimes we will be out of town, or at a medical conference, or on vacation with our family. We hope you will share with us the confidence we have in our colleagues when you need health care when your specific provider is unavailable. If your child's problem is not urgent, requiring same day care, our secretaries should be able to schedule you to see us within a few days in a location that suits you.

How are calls for advice handled during office hours? During evening and weekend hours?
When you call us during office hours, our staff will take a message. We prefer to call you back between patients, at lunch, or at the end of the day. Leaving us a variety of phone numbers (home, work, cell) including your pharmacy, is very helpful to us. Of course, if you announce to our staff that you have an emergency, we will leave the patient we are helping and come right to the phone to advise you.

On nights, weekends and holidays when the office is closed, one of two things will happen when you call. Usually Children's HealthCare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite Telephone Advice Nurse or one of our pediatricians who is on-call will return your call within one hour. That's our goal . . . one hour. If you need us more quickly, you may have a 911 situation. If you have not been called back within one hour, our infrastructure may have failed. It happens very infrequently, but it does happen. Telephone trunk lines fail; batteries die; airwaves don't penetrate; human beings reverse telephone numbers. If you have not been called back within one hour and the problem has not gone away, please call again and announce that you are concerned about infrastructure failure. If our phone nurse should call you, the nurse knows how to reach us quickly should the situation require it. Although we are happy to be available to you after office hours for urgent problems, we request that you not call after the office has closed in two situations:

1. When you, yourselves, have decided the problem can wait to call until the office reopens, and
   
   
2. When you are simply checking out something you may have heard in the media or from friends or family, and your child is not ill. We greatly appreciate you not using the after-hours phone as a general information service, but rather for urgent health problems that cannot wait until the office reopens.

Does your office provide care over the phone?
Yes, much of what we do is offer symptom relieving care by phone. The challenge for parents and for us is to always try to recognize which child requires more than telephone care. Prescribing antibiotics by telephone is fraught with hazard and inaccuracy. We prefer not to do that and usually request an office visit if we feel that antibiotics might be helpful.

What are your average waiting times for scheduling a routine visit?
Infant well check-ups are scheduled more quickly because they are growing fast and time moves fast when you are an infant; teenagers may wait a month or two for a well check-up, because time moves more slowly when you're a teenager. However, consideration is given to sports and activity deadlines.

What are your waiting times to be seen after arrival for my scheduled appointment time?
Putting epidemics aside for a moment, our goal is to have you in and seen within one hour of your arrival or appointment. We often do much better than this. However, epidemics are a reality, e.g. the Flu, or RSV season. Your waiting time might be longer in an epidemic, but we do try to help all who are ill and need us; and we hope and expect that our staff will keep you informed of any circumstances that lead to any unusual delay in seeing you as scheduled.

What are the practice's ideas about breast-feeding, discipline, allowing a baby to cry, medicine use, antibiotic use, and immunizations?
The pediatricians at PAMPA strongly support breast-feeding; but we do recognize and acknowledge an individual mother's right to choose how she will feed her baby. We offer nutritional advice and support whenever we can.

We believe in loving discipline. After all, the word discipline is derived from the Latin word for "teaching". We certainly believe in teaching children about the world and appropriate behavior and decorum. We find that variations on the theme of "time-out" are usually effective.

Sometimes it is necessary to allow a baby to cry in order to learn how to self-quiet; but only after attending to your infant's immediate needs and comforts, e.g. hunger, wetness, burping, rash relief, clothing comforts, etc. Babies who don't cry are already expert at self-quieting; babies who cry can learn to self-quiet, but humanely please.

We believe in using medication appropriately to relieve symptoms when relief is necessary. We don't believe in medicine for medicine's sake. The use of medicine is a science and an art and our pediatricians are engaged in a life-long professional effort to relieve suffering and improve health. We try to use medicines safely and appropriately.

We do believe in and use antibiotics, but as mentioned above, almost never by phone. We are well aware of the current debate and controversy about antibiotics and strive to be current and well informed. On occasion and after a full discussion of pros and cons with a parent, we may choose not to use an antibiotic and monitor the situation carefully with you.

Our pediatricians believe in immunizations! Vaccines have saved more lives than all the doctors who have ever lived or ever will live! We try to educate and always get your permission before immunizing your children. When a few parents choose not to immunize their children, we try to point out the possible serious consequences of their decision, offer alternatives and try to agree on a compromise position that offers protection to the child. We respect a parent's right to decide, but we will share with you if we think a parent has made a wrong choice. We think parents would want to know if their doctor thought they had made an incorrect decision that could harm their child. We hope you agree with us.

How does the practice handle payment for services?
The practice has several patient account representatives who are happy to review our financial policy with you and answer any specific questions. Generally, many patients today have some form of managed care insurance. Your insurer requires you to pay the appropriate co-pay at the time of service. Fees for agreed upon services not covered by your insurer are also due at the time of service. Our practice appreciates your cooperation in this area.

Will the practice help me evaluate doctors recommended by my health plan?
If we know the doctors on your plan, yes. If we don't know them, we will tell you so.

Until what age will you continue to see my child?
Age 21 years. It is a thrill to see them grow, graduate high school, drop in from college and then enter the world.

Do you refer only to pediatric specialists?
Yes and no. Although we use pediatric specialists most of the time, there are many skilled specialists who see children and adults whom we use on occasion.