During your child's life, we know that many questions will arise. Our nursing staff is available to answer the routine, every-day questions; our physicians and PNP's are also available to answer the more complicated questions.

Please call during regular office hours with these routine questions as well as requests for medications, prescription renewals, appointments, and explanations of bills.

We are available for emergencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you call after hours, you will hear a recorded message that will give you instructions to reach our answering service who will contact us within an hour, unless it is a serious emergency, for which they will notify us immediately.

If you call us during normal office hours, you should expect to receive a call back from one of our nurses within a few hours. If you don't hear from us, please call us back. If you call from work, leave your home number as well as a cellphone number if you have one.

Please turn off your answering machine if you are at home. Also, please turn off your "anti - caller ID block" since our mobile phones have caller ID block.

If you call us on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays during the time that we see patients in the Royal Palm office, you will be given instructions if you need to make an appointment if necessary, or to have your questions answered at that time.

We also see patients at the Lantana office for "sick visits" on Saturday mornings. For these appointments, you should call the Lantana office early on Saturdays.

If you call us after hours, you should expect to hear from either a nurse, a nurse practitioner or a doctor within 1 1/2 hours, unless you have stated that it was urgent. If you are concerned that you have not been called back quickly enough, please try us again. Sometimes we have been given wrong numbers and sometimes our beepers or cellphones malfunction.

Obviously, if there ever would be a life-threatening emergency, call 911 to be brought to the nearest hospital (even if we are not on the staff).