We are temporarily suspending all in-office visits and are no longer accepting New Patients.
Our office situation, 8-25-20.
Well, like most businesses in the state, we are struggling desperately to remain open. It's the painful truth. To those patients who are established here with Dr. Birdwell or Marty Sanchez, almost 7,000 of you, we hope you understand that we have always striven to be the most responsive, open and efficient Primary Care practice in the Central Valley. Though we have fallen short at times, it has always been our goal. Our average wait time in the lobby for the last 2 years has been 13 minutes. Our response time to prescription refill requests has been 1.1 days from receipt to review/submission. Our paperwork turnaround (DMV, disability, utility, etc...) has typically been less than one week. All of these are changing. We generally operate with a staff of 7 employees, but due to regulatory and operational changes to the work performed here, we are often operating on 3 employees, or less. Dr. Birdwell typically works 10-15 hours per day, 6+ days/week, and has done so for the last 3 months in an effort to keep up with the highest demand for medical services we have ever experienced. With the sudden passing of Dr. Yunes along with Dr. Bohlman's office closure, many thousands of patients have found themselves without a doctor. Specialist offices are going through much of the same. They often can't return our calls, or do so when they have the staff to try to catch up. They have greatly extended their appointment request follow-up times and are generally experiencing the same overload / understaffed situation we are. We receive hundreds of calls, hundreds of faxes from pharmacies, insurance companies and medical equipment companies every day. Today, we will have 1 office person to handle 4 overwhelmed phone lines. If you receive a busy signal when trying to call, this is why. It has been getting worse day by day. It is unsustainable in the medium to long term. We don't know how long we can remain in operation in this environment.
Know that we are doing our best. Working as many hours as we can, returning as many calls as we can and seeing as many patients as we can, every day, but there is no relief in sight. If you are calling about paperwork you dropped off, have a general medical question or are following up on a prescription refill request, we are doing our best to get to it.
We are praying for something to change to allow us to return to some semblance of normal operational efficiency, but for the foreseeable future, it doesn't look like it's going to happen. We will make every effort remain open for as long as we can, and do our best to try to accommodate each and every patient to the best of our ability, as we always have. Our prayers are with our family of patients, our staff and those people who are suddenly in need of a doctor in the Madera area. God bless each and every one of you.
We will no longer be scheduling appointments for New Patients, effective 7-1-20. Updating and notifying the many insurance plans we deal with of this change will take time. This applies only to NEW PATIENTS, not patients already established at our office. You will still be able to schedule appointments for a telehealth consult, or in-office visit when we again open for regular business.
Our office situation, 8-25-20.
Well, like most businesses in the state, we are struggling desperately to remain open. It's the painful truth. To those patients who are established here with Dr. Birdwell or Marty Sanchez, almost 7,000 of you, we hope you understand that we have always striven to be the most responsive, open and efficient Primary Care practice in the Central Valley. Though we have fallen short at times, it has always been our goal. Our average wait time in the lobby for the last 2 years has been 13 minutes. Our response time to prescription refill requests has been 1.1 days from receipt to review/submission. Our paperwork turnaround (DMV, disability, utility, etc...) has typically been less than one week. All of these are changing. We generally operate with a staff of 7 employees, but due to regulatory and operational changes to the work performed here, we are often operating on 3 employees, or less. Dr. Birdwell typically works 10-15 hours per day, 6+ days/week, and has done so for the last 3 months in an effort to keep up with the highest demand for medical services we have ever experienced. With the sudden passing of Dr. Yunes along with Dr. Bohlman's office closure, many thousands of patients have found themselves without a doctor. Specialist offices are going through much of the same. They often can't return our calls, or do so when they have the staff to try to catch up. They have greatly extended their appointment request follow-up times and are generally experiencing the same overload / understaffed situation we are. We receive hundreds of calls, hundreds of faxes from pharmacies, insurance companies and medical equipment companies every day. Today, we will have 1 office person to handle 4 overwhelmed phone lines. If you receive a busy signal when trying to call, this is why. It has been getting worse day by day. It is unsustainable in the medium to long term. We don't know how long we can remain in operation in this environment.
Know that we are doing our best. Working as many hours as we can, returning as many calls as we can and seeing as many patients as we can, every day, but there is no relief in sight. If you are calling about paperwork you dropped off, have a general medical question or are following up on a prescription refill request, we are doing our best to get to it.
We are praying for something to change to allow us to return to some semblance of normal operational efficiency, but for the foreseeable future, it doesn't look like it's going to happen. We will make every effort remain open for as long as we can, and do our best to try to accommodate each and every patient to the best of our ability, as we always have. Our prayers are with our family of patients, our staff and those people who are suddenly in need of a doctor in the Madera area. God bless each and every one of you.
We will no longer be scheduling appointments for New Patients, effective 7-1-20. Updating and notifying the many insurance plans we deal with of this change will take time. This applies only to NEW PATIENTS, not patients already established at our office. You will still be able to schedule appointments for a telehealth consult, or in-office visit when we again open for regular business.
***7-1-20*** Our office is minimally staffed to answer phone questions or accommodate telehealth visits until further notice. When we again open for regular business, we will post that information here.