As the COVID-19 situation has evolved, I wanted to share again how important your safety and security is to our caregiving mission. Dr. Fogel and his staff are responding to the evolving situation, and I wanted to share our specific actions to make sure you receive safe care during this time.
Flattening the curve is the goal, but as we are successful with this, it will prolong the event, and we are making adjustments for a longer-duration response.
We know that flattening the curve is critical to lessening the impact of this event, and we are aggressively pursuing social distancing by avoiding the office and instead using telehealth with and without video to replace clinic visits
We are a small medical office and do not have the protective equipment today to treat patients in the office. We are working to obtain gowns, masks, gloves, eye protection and all equipment. Once we have the protective gear we need to continue our office caregiving we will be ready to respond to our Governor when a return to medical practice is announced.
We understand state officials and medical boards are directing physicians to avoid elective surgical care, but Dr. Fogel assures that medically necessary care that is judged by our clinicians as urgent or emergent can and must continue. Dr. Fogel’s medical judgement is trusted in this matter and the hospitals have established Peer Based Review Team to check any request and support the patient and physician. Please contact our office at 210-615-8600 if you have questions or need help.
The hospitals and ambulatory locations have initiated limitations on facility access to restrict or limit visitation or presence in the facility for reasonable clinical and safety reasons to prevent community-associated infection or communicable disease transmission to patients and facility staff.
Effectively immediately, unless seeking personal medical treatment, please avoid all Medical locations if you are confirmed or suspected to be COVID19 positive. This includes exposure to a COVID positive person in the last 14 days or having flu-like and other concerning symptoms in the last 72 hours. These symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, dry cough, diarrhea, abdominal pain and anorexia. If you need support, coverage, or have questions about what to do with CoVid19 please contact your primary provider or your local emergency room.
No one should go anywhere near the office or hospital if they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. This is necessary to assure that our caregivers and patients stay safe.
Dr. Fogel appreciates the courage and personal sacrifice each of you bring to the mitigation of CoVid19 virus. Please stay safe and continue social distancing.
Please contact Dr. Fogel at 210-615-8600 with questions, concerns or ideas on how we can adjust and improve our approach to this difficult challenge.
