Urgent Care Options 2019
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Murphy's Law generally seems to make certain that the fever spikes, or the vomiting starts, right at 5:01 pm when the average doctor's office turns their phones off. It is important to be familiar with your after hours/urgent care options. At the bottom of this post I have some blog links that may help you decide if you need to be seen or not. I put the dosage chart link down there as well since that is a common question that many folks have after hours.
Please try to keep track of any refill needs. We are happy to help with that during routine business hours.
Waiting until you or your child is ill is not the best time to start learning about what choices exist in your area. Does your insurance plan have a preferred option that won’t cost as much? Are there after hours advice nurses available? Where is the closest emergency room? Is it staffed with pediatricians? If you are traveling, plan ahead and figure out local options for care before the trip.
For Noe Valley Pediatrics patients who need help after hours, we ask you to start with the pediatric after hours clinic/triage nurse line:415-387-9293
If the nurse is NOT able to help, you will be directed to our answering service where the Noe Valley Pediatrics physician who is on call that night will be paged. If your child needs a prescription, it is unlikely that the on call doctor will be able to prescribe without an evaluation. The answering service number is 415-753-4697
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we are lucky to have very good options for after hours care.
The UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians Pediatric After Hours Clinics and Advice Service:
In San Francisco
3490 California Street, Suite #200
415-387-9293
In Berkeley
3000 Colby St Suite 301 (New Location 7/2017)
510-486-8344
Patients are seen by appointment:
Weeknight pediatricians are made up of participating private pediatricians, including several of our doctors who work an occasional shift in the clinic there. Weekend doctors are fully trained and board certified pediatricians. The advice nurse triage team is available from 5 pm through the night, even after the clinic is closed. The availability of the triage nurse makes this our number one choice.
The Pediatrics After Hours Care at St Luke’s Hospital is affiliated with Sutter/ CPMC and is located at 1580 Valencia Street, 7th Floor #701 This clinic has been open for several years now:
It is now open 7 days a week.
Phone: 866-961-8588
This service does not currently have an advice nurse team, but the person answering the phone can help do some basic triage when making the appointment and help redirect you to an emergency room if that seems necessary. This clinic has some advantages besides the convenient location. They start the scheduling process as early as 2 pm, which may make it easier to make a plan if we are already solidly booked here in our office and can’t get you in to see us that same day. They also offer weekend weight and bilirubin checks for our newborns. As a bonus, there is a special waiting area so that the healthy newborns aren’t exposed to the other sick kids.
The two options listed above are the only urgent care facilities with which our office has a close relationship. When things are going as they should, both of the above after hours options send a report to the primary doctor's office. In our office, the nurse team reviews the reports and follows up to see how you are doing to maintain a sense of continuity.
I am listing the others below as a convenience.
If you are not in San Francisco, on the Peninsula you have several good options:
210 Baldwin Ave in San Mateo.
Telephone 650-579-6581
The Palo Alto Medical Foundation has several pediatric urgent care options:
They have a choice of appointment or drop in. The website gives info about the various locations and current wait times.
There are plenty of general urgent care places popping up all over the place as well. They are not usually staffed with pediatricians. For a teen, this is not much of an issue, but for my younger kids, I would try to stick with one of the pediatric after hours clinics.
Children are not just little adults. Some general practitioners are not versed in the treatment modalities of the pediatrics patient.
If you do end up at another urgent care, please ask them to send over a report to your primary pediatrician so that they can stay in the loop. If you are Noe Valley Pediatrics patient our fax number is 415-826-1308
EMERGENCY ROOMS
In a true emergency of course call 911. If it is less urgent, but you are certain that you child needs immediate medical attention we are lucky to have excellent options here in SF. When given the choice I will generally opt for one of the true pediatric emergency rooms. You are not competing for care with the elderly heart attack and stroke victims that may be populating the waiting room and getting ranked higher on the triage scale. You will also be assured of seeing a pediatrician and having appropriate pediatric equipment. If an admission is needed, my preference would be either CPMC at the new Van Ness campus or UCSF Mission Bay. There also won’t be any transport needed if you are already at one of those ERs. I think it is worth the extra ten minute drive across town and may save you time in the long run.
The UCSF Pediatric ER in Mission Bay is located at 1975 Fourth Street:
This emergency room has scored very high in a nationwide ranking for getting patients seen in a timely manner.
On March 3, 2019, the CPMC Pediatric Emergency Room relocated from California Street to the new Van Ness Campus in San Francisco at 1101 Van Ness Avenue
DAYTIME URGENT CARE
While we strongly prefer to have our youngest patients be seen by a pediatrician, there are ‘those days’ when our office is completely booked up early. If there is something going on that is not worthy of an emergency room visit and you don’t want to wait until the pediatric urgent care offices open, there are more and more urgent care options popping up all of the time. Many of these are conveniently located throughout the bay area. It is worth checking the prices, they can vary greatly. Check with your insurance to make sure that the place you go is considered in network. Places that offer appointments are also a bonus so that you are not sitting around a crowded waiting room.
With any urgent care, make sure they send a report to your primary doctor’s office. If you were not seen by a pediatrician, it is always a good idea to touch base with your own doctor the next day to review the diagnosis, treatment plan and follow up needs.
Some of the common calls that folks need help with after hours are dosage questions. Here is the link to a post with that info:
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