We at Delmar Family Medicine want you to know we are here for you and your family in this difficult time. 

We would like to let you know we are open and operating at full staff to meet all of your health needs. Appointments for annual physicals, and chronic condition follow up will go on as normal. If you are not comfortable coming to the office we are happy to reschedule you or convert your visit to a video visit. We are trying to restrict office visits to people without respiratory symptoms and fevers, for the protection of all patients visiting the office and our staff. We will be checking temperatures at the door and if you have a fever you will be asked to return to your car and a provider will call you to develop a plan. 

During this time we are offering Telephone visit and Virtual visits. We will be billing insurance companies for these visits but the insurance companies should NOT be charging you a copay or coinsurance. If you receive a bill for these services during this time please call our office and speak with Allyson. 

The visits can be scheduled just like a regular appointment. We are using an encrypted and secure video platform. 

If you are using a computer with a camera and microphone you just need the Google chrome browser to connect. (Safari is not supported).

If you wish to use a smart phone or tablet please download one of the Telehealth Apps on to the left

The provider will send you a link to join the meeting and the visit can proceed. 

Testing kits are still limited despite what you are seeing on the news. These testing kits and resources are being conserved for health care workers and first responders to keep them working on the front lines. They are also being used for decision making in a hospital setting. 

Currently testing low risk individuals (defined as people without chronic respiratory problems or people who are NOT significantly immunocompromised) is not recommended. 

As testing kits become more available and recommendations change this will likely change. Please realize the test results at this point mean very little, there is no medication to treat the virus in an outpatient setting and MORE than 80% of individuals who contract the virus suffer flu like symptoms and recover easily. 

There will be antibody testing available in the future to determine if you have immunity to COVID (the mild cold symptoms you had could have been COVID). We will assist you in determining immunity when the crisis of the pandemic is over. 
 

NY State has enacted an Emotional Support hotline if you are struggling with anxiety or stress due to the COVID crisis you can reach out to them at 1-844-863-9314, or as always you can reach out to us here and we will do our best to assist you. 

• Try to maintain school hours for school age kids
  • During what would be school time no video game or social media
  • Maintain normal bed times and sleep schedules
• Get out and exercise 
  • Walk, bike clean up the yard but maintain social distancing
• Try to make the weekend still a weekend
  • No school work
  • Parents try not to work as well
  • Take a car ride
  • Pack a lunch so you do not have to stop and expose yourselves to others
  • There are beautiful areas to drive through here in NY State

If you have teenagers preparing to leave home and start independent lives, try some life skills classes:

• How to cook soup
• How to change a tire
• How to change the oil in a car
• How to prep a room to paint it
• How to fix a leaky faucet
• How to balance a check book
   

Dr. Forman, Dr. Elliott, Nanette Gamon NP, Allyson Irving Practice Manager 

And all the staff at Delmar Family medicine