General Information
Appointments
Please tell the receptionist the nature and severity of your problem when you call to arrange an appointment. Our staff will do their best to arrange appointments that are convenient and meets your urgent needs. As a courtesy, our automated call service will remind you of your appointment two days in advance, however, you are responsible for your own appointments.
Please arrive on time or earlier if your contact and or insurance information has changed.
Always bring your insurance card(s), co-payments and picture identification (e.g. driver's license) to your appointment.
Cancellations / No Shows
We go out of our way not to double book appointment times, so we request you give us 1 business day notice (2 business day notice for OMT appointments) when canceling or rescheduling appointments. We consider an appointment a "no show" if proper notification is not given. When you "no show" or cancel last minute it obstructs other patients access to our doctor and produces financial loss for our clinic. Patients that no show often will be discharged from the practice.
You can reschedule or cancel your appointment immediately on the patient portal or call the office during normal business hours.
Emergencies / After Hours / Urgent Care
In addition to our regular hours, we have a provider on call 24 hours a day for urgent problems. When you contact us after hours, your call will be directed to our call service. The service will contact the physician on call and have the physician call you back.
If you have a life threatening emergency, dial 911 immediately for medical assistance, or go to the nearest emergency room.
The on-call provider will not address chronic medical problems or prescription refills after hours.
HMO members please locate the urgent care centers available to you based on your medical group. Use the links below to find an urgent care center closest to you:
Laboratory & Radiological Test Results
Depending on what type of blood tests Dr. Sy orders, final results can take 2 days but often up to 1 week to return.
We realize that getting any type of test done does create a good amount of anxiety and desire to hear of results.
Please note that office staff is neither licensed nor capable of adequately reviewing your test results with you. For a significant abnormality, you will be contacted to schedule an urgent office visit. For minor abnormalities, you will be requested to schedule a non-urgent office visit.
Medication Request / Refills
Our doctor prescribes enough medicine to last you until you are needed to be seen again. Some medications are prescribed for a year, others for several months, and other types of medication require closer follow-up. By limiting the number of refills allowed, we can be assured that you will follow up in the clinic as needed to monitor the effects of the medication you are taking.
Once you start your last refill, it is time to contact our office for an appointment if you do not have one scheduled. Please do not allow your medicine to run out. Remember that this is for your health and safety. Please remember to allow 24-48 hours for the processing of all refill requests. Some medications require pre-authorization from your insurance company; it may take longer in these cases.
When requesting a medication refill, please request on the patient portal or call the office. You will be notified when the prescription is called in, or if you need an appointment before a refill can be granted. Please call your pharmacy prior to picking up prescriptions to make sure they are ready.
As a standard of care, we cannot phone in antibiotics, narcotics or tranquilizers without seeing you in the the clinic, nor do we prescribe medications for conditions you have not been treated for in our office.
New Parent Information
We realize how perplexing and overwhelming it can be to even attempt to uncover the mystery of parenthood, and much more overwhelming the medical perplexities to newborn and infant care, so we have prepared a new parent medical guidebook called "Pediatric Guide to Parents" to assist in you in such times of need. Download and print it from the document side bar on the right.
If you are a parent of a newborn, we will provide you with a vaccination record, which should be brought with you each and every subsequent Well Child Check.
If you are transferring your child's medical care to our practice, please do bring your child's vaccination card to their initial office visit, as well as to each subsequent Well Child or Well Adolescent encounter.
Referrals
We go out of our way to direct you to the most competent of medical and surgical specialists in our area, and we are very particular in our recommendations –for we do consider these specialists extensions of our care.
If you have a private or PPO- insurance plan you will receive complete contact information prior to leaving our office.
Imaging referrals will need insurance authorization to be made by the imaging center. Please make sure to verify authorization (typically there is an "authorization confirmation number") for some of our privately insured patients have been sent a bill for studies after having received their study. Our office will try to assist you in such cases, but it is always easier for a patient to obtain prior authorization than retro-authorization.
If you have a HMO- insurance plan, the majority of referrals are called "Direct Referrals" and we can obtain same day (almost immediate) insurance authorization prior to your departure from our office. Referrals are typically authorized for a 3 month period from date of request.
Plain radiographs, mammograms, bone density and ultrasound imaging requests do not need authorization.
For a certain number of specialty referrals and other specialty radiological studies, called "indirect referrals", authorization for consultation and imaging typically takes 3-5 business days depending on urgency or need. Our office staff will mail you upon approval.
