zCOVID-19 Information

During this world-wide COVID-19 pandemic,
we at Family Medicine at Greenhill are working hard to:

1. Continue to provide quality healthcare.
2. Continue to ensure access to your medical team.
3. Provide information on the ever-changing protocol of COVID-19 testing.
4. Ensure the safety of our staff and patients.

New Types of Visits during this Pandemic:

To provide the best care to both sick and well patients and also keep healthy patients healthy, we will provide 3 different appointment types.

1. Scheduled In-Office Visits

Patients who need to be seen for follow up or problems that are not associated with COVID symptoms or other upper respiratory infections will be seen at either of our locations.  These “healthy visits” include routine care for diabetes or other chronic conditions, follow up after a hospitalization or emergency room visit, well-child visits and other preventive care, and injuries or other acute problems that do not suggest COVID or other respiratory infections. We will keep these appointments available because it is important to continue good care for our patients apart from COVID, and many medical issues require an office visit to be accurately diagnosed and managed.

2. Telehealth/Video Conference appointments

This is a live digital appointment with a doctor or nurse practitioner that includes both audio and video, similar to Skype or FaceTime.  It is for either healthy or sick patients, intended to minimize exposure for both healthy and sick patients, as well as our staff.  These telemedicine visits will be offered during our regular office hours. These visits also can be used to decrease the inconvenience for those families and patients who have difficulty making the arrangements to come into the office.

3. Sick In-Person appointments

These appointments are for patients with symptoms of COVID-19 or other respiratory infections (i.e., cough, fever, sore throat, muscle aches or shortness of breath), that have been evaluated by a clinician via telemedicine and need an in-office evaluation.  These appointments will only be scheduled at our Greenhill Ave location. Upon arrival at our location, please call us at (302) 429-5870 and one of our Medical assistants will advise when you are cleared to enter the building and will escort you to the exam room. These precautions are to minimize contact with our staff and other patients.

We will make sure that each room is cleaned thoroughly between patients. The exams rooms and other rooms in the office will get a deep cleaning at the end of the day so it is clean before the next day’s healthy visit session. We are not seeing sick patients at our Churchman’s Rd location during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current COVID-19 Testing Requirements & Recommendations

Currently, our policy is to screen patients with symptoms or high-risk possible exposure or contact.  If you feel you need to be tested due to COVID-like symptoms or possible exposure, a telehealth visit with one of our providers is required prior to being tested. Please call our front desk to schedule your visit- DO NOT come directly into the office. (click for more info on telemedicine).

We expect to be able to provide point of care testing at our office in the near future. Testing for asymptomatic (no symptoms or contact) is available at several locations in Delaware (link to DE testing websites).

 

We do not recommend you go to the emergency room for testing or treatment unless you have severe symptoms that are extreme enough to warrant emergency care.

General recommendations for COVID-19 are:

To stay safe and to keep your family safe during the COVID-19 pandemic- practice social distancing, working from home, limit your outside world exposure, continue prolonged handwashing. EVERYONE needs to wear a mask whenever you are closed than 6 feet to anyone you are not living with. Please avoid large gatherings. Being outdoor with others has a much lower risk of transmission than being indoor with others.

Please seek testing if you have a fever, cough, or other flu or viral symptoms or have had a known exposure to COVID-19.

1. If you have mild symptoms practice SELF-ISOLATION and GET TESTED:  Stay home, treat symptoms, minimize contact with any people in the family.  Wash and sanitize everything continually. People are allowed in the same house.
2. If you have tested positive for COVID-19-SELF –QUARANTINE:  Patient should be at home, limited to one space.  If possible, limit the people in the house to someone who can take care of you.  The caretaker should limit direct contact.  Continue to practice good hygiene as self-isolation.
3. If COVID-19 positive with severe symptoms:  Please contact the office for this – you will need to see one of our doctors or nurse practitioners, who will refer you to the hospital if appropriate.

Recommendations for
General Hygiene and Prevention

1. Wash hands often, with soap and water, each time for 20 seconds.
2. If no access to soap and water, use hand sanitizer.
3. Avoid touching your face.
4. Avoid contact with persons who are sick.
5. Stay home if you are sick.

For more information on how to protect yourself and others, visit the CDC website.