Ridgefield Pediatric Associates Patient Resources

We use the NCI Answering Service and Night Nurse Triage Program to assist in answering parents’ calls from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. You can use this service to speak with a trained pediatric registered nurse after hours. The nurse can answer your questions and may save you a visit to an emergency room or urgent care center in the middle of the night.

To access this service, simply call our office number and tell the answering service operator you have a health question about your child. The operator will give your message to a pediatric-trained triage registered nurse at the Pediatric Advice Line who will return your call promptly. The nurse will discuss your concerns and can provide health care advice. If your child’s condition needs immediate attention, the nurse will consult our on-call pediatrician.

Whenever you call the Pediatric Advice Line, your pediatrician will receive a report of your call on the next day and will follow up with you as needed. Questions about routine appointments and prescription refills will be handled only during regular office hours.

We can schedule well visits up to three months in advance. When you call for these visits, we will make every effort to schedule you with the provider of your choice. Please understand that there are times when a particular provider is not available and be flexible in seeing one of our other providers. Spring and summer are busy months, so we ask that you plan ahead.

If you have an appointment for one child and wish to have a sibling checked at the same time, please call the office before the visit so we can make time to see both children within a limited time frame.

Please try to make every effort to accompany older children for their visits. Connecticut law requires that any child receiving a vaccine needs the parent to review the vaccine information and sign authorization before the child can have the vaccine. If you cannot be with your child, please let our administrator know before the visit.

If it is necessary for your child to come to an appointment alone, please make sure they they bring their current insurance card and copay.

Recently, we have seen an increase in missed appointments. In an effort to meet the needs of all our patients, we are implementing the following policy:

• You must cancel appointments by 3 p.m. of the previous day (or by 3 p.m. on the Friday before a Monday appointment) or you will be charged a cancellation fee
• Insurance companies do not cover late fees, so you will be responsible for payment. The late cancellation fee for a well visit or other checkup is $40.

We have a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-approved laboratory in our office. This allows us to do many labs that are part of evaluating your child’s health. Some insurance companies will not allow you to have your child’s lab done in the office, as they may have contractual arrangements with outside laboratories. It is important to find out if your plan does not cover in-house lab services and to let us know so our staff can give you a prescription to have the services performed elsewhere.

We offer the following lab services in our office:

• complete blood count
• finger stick testing for hemoglobin (anemia check)
• pinworm evaluation
• rapid strep test
• throat culture
• urinalysis
• urine culture
• urine pregnancy test
• cholesterol test
• lead Test
• quick flu A & B
• glucose Testing

In some cases, we may need your child to return to our office for a lab visit only, either for lab services or vaccines. Please note that your insurance company may require a copay for this visit.

Our electronic health record allows us to send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy of your choice. Controlled substances can now be filled via e-script. 

If you are planning a trip out of the country, it is never too early to schedule an appointment with our physicians, We can make sure your child’s routine immunizations are up to date and discuss whether your child needs the typhoid vaccine. This vaccine is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to protect against typhoid fever when traveling to certain developing countries, especially in South Asia. She can also discuss malaria prevention as well as how to protect against food and waterborne diseases (travelers diarrhea) and prescribe any needed medications. Please plan ahead as some of these medications take weeks before they are effective.

• International Travel Questionnaire
• Medical and Allergy Information