How to Reach Us During Business Hours

Calls regarding non urgent appointments, prescription refills for chronic medications, billing problems and insurance questions will be handled by our front office staff. Prescription renewals and non-urgent appointment requests may also be handled on-line through our practice web site. Questions concerning any of the above will be handled during regular business hours at (864) 272-0388 (8:15am-5:00pm, Monday-Friday). Our physicians are available to attend to acute or urgent medical problems at any time.

Routine medical concerns such as dosages for common over-the-counter medications, simple first aid measures, fever control etc. are addressed on our web site under the e-Resources section or your question may be answered over the phone by our office and or nursing staff.

Our physicians will return calls regarding more complex issues. Urgent calls will be returned immediately. Less urgent ones will be returned before the end of the morning or afternoon session when they were placed.

If you have a true emergency, call 911 immediately. If you feel that 911 is not necessary, but the situation is urgent, you will be asked to come into the office or your call will be immediately directed to a physician.

How to Reach Us After Hours - CALL (864) 272-0388

If a problem arises outside of our normal office hours, there is a doctor on call 24 hours a day. During late night hours, calls will be returned by a highly trained pediatric nurse who will refer all significant problems to the physician on call or directly to the emergency room. If you must speak with the physician on call, please indicate that to the nurse.

If you feel that you have a potentially serious or life threatening condition, call 911 immediately. If you feel that this is not necessary, please explain to the Pediatric Nurse that you feel that the problem is an emergency, and they will treat it as such.

If you need to be seen at the start of office hours, please call first thing when the office opens that morning.

How to Make the Most of Your Telephone Call

All phone calls should be directed to the office. Coverage is provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Things to tell your doctor or pediatric nurse when you call:

1.        Your child's age.

2.        What you are concerned about, how long it has been going on and has it been getting worse.

3.        What you have done about your child's illness.

4.        Your child's temperature.

5.        Your child's state of alertness.

6.        Your child's intake of fluids

We pride ourselves on our availability to discuss urgent problems at any time. Should you have a true life threatening emergency, call 911 immediately. For anything else, please call us first. Use of hospital emergency rooms should be limited to such severe situations, or if you are directed to go there by the nurse or physician on call. In the majority of cases, you can call us and together we can decide how to approach the problem.

Please DON'T

• Hold a crying baby in your arms while trying to talk to us over the phone.
• Rely on your memory-have a pencil and paper handy before you call.
• Panic--in an emergency, though it’s hard not to do when your child needs help, it is difficult for us to help if you are excited and unable to give a history.

We are much more alert and prepared to help meet your pediatric needs in the daytime hours than we are at night. We encourage you to call any time if you have an urgent problem or are concerned. However, if the call is about a long standing problem (e.g. constipation, poor appetite, diaper rash, teething, etc.), or a medication refill, we would be very grateful if you would consider the possibility of calling in the morning when we are better able to serve you.