We realize that many of our patients are very concerned and even a little scared about the current situation with the coronavirus, COVID-19. At Allergy & Asthma Care, we are taking this very seriously but are hoping to be a source of valid information and reassurance.

Because of the nature of our specialty, being cautious of infection is nothing new. We have longstanding protocols of handwashing and disinfecting, as well as sterile technique when it comes to many procedures. We have made a few adjustments by providing hand washing stations in our waiting area and our allergy shot area. We are also disinfecting our waiting area throughout the day, disinfecting pens and clipboards after single use, and have removed all toys and all magazines. Finally, we have no employees that are currently ill or have any recent travel to high risk areas. You will also see that all the staff will be in scrubs, including the doctors and mid-level providers, this is an effort to protect our employees and their families from possibly sick patients seen during the day.

We are also working on transitioning many office visits to TeleMedicine visits in the next week. We will be contacting patients and announcing this on our website in the near future.

In all, we very comfortable that our office is safe and a low risk environment.   We have no plans to close our office in the upcoming weeks and will continue to offer appointments for food allergies, hives, asthma and seasonal allergies. We will be modifying our allergy shot protocols in order to keep patient distance from other patients. We will be posting our specific protocols later today and contacting many of our patients by phone. We are screening all patients for illness and other risk factors and are not currently seeing patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection. We do not offer testing for COVID-19 in our office.

We feel strongly that routine and “well” visits, including food and drug challenges, can be completed in our office in the next few days. Ultimately, though, it is your decision on whether you would like to reschedule. We do ask that you give us 24 hour notice for all cancellations and rescheduled appointments. We hope to have a TeleMedicine option by the end of this week.

As always, our primary concern is you and your family’s health and well-being.