If your child is experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.
Kids often are sick after hours. Even if our office is closed, we still offer many resources to assist you. Nurses can answer your questions after 5:00 p.m. The online KidsDoc Symptom Checker may provide you with an answer to your question or concern. If not and you feel your question cannot wait until the office opens, call the 24 hour FREE advice line listed on your insurance card, or you can call our office number and you will be connected with our answering service. The answering service will arrange for you to speak with a pediatric phone advice nurse from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) (www.choa.org). To do this, you will need to give the answering service a phone number where you can be reached. It may take up to one hour for the CHOA nurse to call you. If you feel unable to wait, then you should take your child to the nearest pediatric emergency room. The CHOA nurses are very well trained to handle after hours emergency calls. If the CHOA nurse has any concerns about your child, he/she will arrange through our answering service to have the GPAM on call pediatrician paged. It may take up to one hour for the pediatrician to call you back. If you feel unable wait, then you should take your child to the closest pediatric emergency room. If you have caller ID block on your phone, it MUST be disabled in order to get a return call from the on call pediatrician. If you do not disable the caller ID block on your phone, you will not be able to speak with the pediatrician. At times, the on call pediatrician may call you from a number that is not blocked. It is NOT acceptable to call the pediatrician back at that number. If you need to speak with the pediatrician again, call the office number and notify the answering service. If not an emergency, you may be charged $15.00 for after hour advice.
The GPAM pediatricians take turns being the on call pediatrician. Thus, the on call pediatrician is unlikely to be the same pediatrician you may have seen in the office. The on call pediatrician is not at the office or hospital. The on call pediatrician is at home and receives text messages from the answering service. The answering service sends a message to the pediatrician with your child’s name, phone number, and a very brief statement about what your call is regarding. The CHOA nurse with whom you initially speak does not relay any information to the on call pediatrician. As the pediatrician receives many pages, it is important to present your reason for calling clearly and succinctly. The pediatrician will ask you questions. Your child should be with you at the time of the call. You should inform the pediatrician if your child has any chronic medical problems (i.e. diabetes, congenital heart disease). The on call pediatrician cannot make a medical diagnosis over the phone. He/she can only provide limited advice. The pediatrician may advise that your child be seen at a pediatric emergency room.
The on call pediatrician will NOT call in medications. There are NO exceptions. If you feel your child needs a prescription medication after hours, then your child must be seen. We do NOT call in refills of any medications after hours. There are NO exceptions. You must call the office during normal business hours for medication refills.
If your child has a minor illness (IE: sore throat, earache) that can not wait until morning - KidsTime Pediatrics. There is a Lawrenceville/Snellville location open 6pm-9pm weeknights and 1pm-7pm Saturday and Sundays. This office is staffed with board certified pediatricians who are very skilled at treating children. (Unlike the retail clinics that provide clinicians with limited pediatric experience.) We think this is a great alternative if you are unable to wait until our office opens. Call 404-943-1979 for directions or go to website www.kidstimepeds.com for more information.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and GMC Pediatric Emergency room:
If your child has more urgent needs after hours, we recommend that your child be seen either at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) or the GMC pediatric emergency room. CHOA has two pediatric emergency rooms and many urgent care centers where you child can be seen. You can get more information by calling 404-250-KIDS.