Cancellations & Rescheduling: Impact of COVID Summer 2021
"How is the Delta variant effecting your practice?" We have been asked this many times recently. Beginning in summer 2021 COVID cases in our state surged from less than 100 per week to over 3,000 per week. Eighty to 90% of the hospitalized patients have been unvaccinated. This has been very worrisome, but we have continued our busy and active practice - caring for our patients, maintaining their scheduled Botox and fillers, continuing Coolsculpting, or completing their breast, face, and body cosmetic surgery.
First of all, most of our staff is fully vaccinated, so thankfully none of our employees has contracted COVID during the surge. However, one unvaccinated family member recovered from a mild illness.
Second, our office surgical facility is functioning normally. We have been unaffected by the recent hospital cancellation of elective surgery. Hospitals in our area are truly overwhelmed by the large number of respiratory illness cases, so they don't have sufficient resources for routine surgery on healthy patients. Our specialized in-house surgical suite has no such problem. In addition, we have no supply limitations; we are fully stocked with necessary surgical supplies and medcations. Our dedicated nurses are available to practice their craft.
We have had a significant volume of rescheduling. Some new patients have called to report recent exposure to a COVID patient or actual illness themselves. They have needed to reschedule their consultation appointments many weeks into the future, so that they will be fully recovered. Several patients have had to reschedule their surgery. This will be done later, after clearance from their primary care doctors. This created the opportunity of other patients who wish to have their surgery done earlier; they are happy to move up. The practice stays busy, but actively works to meet the needs of each of these patients.
Fortunately we have ample talented staff members able to meet this demand.
- Angie the patient coordinator.
- Sara and Emily at our front desk and reception.
- Caron assisting Dr. Browne, and others.
- Kendall managing our office.
We hope all our callers avoid the typical office phone prompt systems ("press 2 for appointments") and get what they need quickly and smoothly. And talk to a real human!
So call, click our "contact us" link, or send an e-mail if you want to reach us for your aesthetic medical or surgical care.
