Dear trusted referring physicians and colleagues,
The situation involving the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve. We have deep respect and appreciation for your commitment to providing urgent and timely healthcare to your patients and being at the frontlines of this crisis. We want to support your practice and patients by continuing to provide gastroenterology services at this crucial time.
Following guidelines issued by multiple GI societies, we have started utilizing telemedicine to provide care to the majority of our patients. These changes allow patients to communicate with us without having to travel to a healthcare facility so that they can limit risk of exposure and spread of this virus.
We have a user-friendly telemedicine platform that patients can access with their smart phones, tablets, laptops or their computers. We are also using regular telephone calls for patients who may not have access to the former. There is IT support available to help patients during regular business hours in case they run into technical issues. We will be seeing new and established patients through this platform and continue to provide comprehensive GI care as we always have.
Our phone and fax lines are open as usual, and we have staff working remotely, facilitating referrals and working on our schedules. In addition, we will have urgent clinic hours on Monday and Thursday mornings to see patients who need to come in for an in-person visit. Depending on needs, we may adjust and provide additional dates as necessary. Following directives by the surgeon general, all elective procedures have been postponed, but we will have our surgery centers open for emergent procedures.
Please feel free to contact us if you have ANY questions or concerns. We are here for you and our patients in these challenging times and together we will get through this.
Sincerely,
San Jose Gastroenterology
