Author: Lake Forest Pediatric Associates

We wish to share the news that Dr. Karen Burton and Dr. Katherine Hidaka have announced their retirements. Dr. Burton will be hanging up her stethoscope on July 13th and Dr. Hidaka will follow on August 9th.

Joining Lake Forest Pediatrics in July of 1985, Dr. Burton has been a staple physician with our practice. She served on the practice’s Board of Directors for nearly her entire time with the practice, and has been a vital member recently on the practice’s internal “COVID Committee”, providing insightful review and analysis of the pandemic’s trajectory, reviewing innumerable medical journals and announcements from government agencies, and giving best recommendations to help keep staff and patients safe during these turbulent years.

Joining the practice in August of 2009, Dr. Hidaka has been an adored physician at our practice. She has also served on the practice’s Board of Directors and has worked side-by-side with Dr. Kinsella on new provider recruiting. We will surely miss her easy-going and joyful demeanor.

We wish them both nothing but the best and we hope they enjoy more time with their families.

They may have already spoken with you, or you may have received a letter from us in the mail, but please know that we wish to avoid any possible interruptions in your child’s care. On our “Meet Our Providers” page, you may find brief bios of other members of our practice. Each are Board Certified in Pediatrics and are on-staff at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital, and all are dedicated to delivering the best care that every person deserves.

Please feel free to let our front office staff know which physician you would like to see at your next visit. Should your insurance plan require you to select a primary care physician, you may inform them of which physician you have chosen, effective 7/14/2022 for Dr. Burton and 8/10/2022 for Dr. Hidaka.

If you have any questions or if you need anything, please contact our office at 847-295-1220.

Thank you for the continued privilege of providing care for your child.

Some patients who have received an invoice from us, after logging into the Patient Portal, are seeing $0 balance due. If you receive an invoice from our office and see no balance on the Portal, you are still able to make a payment and it will be properly credited to your account.

We apologize for the inconvenience. This issue is not affecting all accounts, but we are working with our EMR provider (Greenway) to resolve this.

Thank you.

We’re pleased to announce the approval has been given for COVID boosters for individuals who are 5-11 years of age and after at least 5 months after completion of a primary series with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

We will be carrying the vaccine in all 3 of our office locations. Starting today, you may contact our office to schedule an appointment.

From the FDA:

“While it has largely been the case that COVID-19 tends to be less severe in children than adults, the omicron wave has seen more kids getting sick with the disease and being hospitalized, and children may also experience longer term effects, even following initially mild disease,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. “The FDA is authorizing the use of a single booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for children 5 through 11 years of age to provide continued protection against COVID-19. Vaccination continues to be the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 and its severe consequences, and it is safe. If your child is eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and has not yet received their primary series, getting them vaccinated can help protect them from the potentially severe consequences that can occur, such as hospitalization and death.”

“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is effective in helping to prevent the most severe consequences of COVID-19 in individuals 5 years of age and older,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “Since authorizing the vaccine for children down to 5 years of age in October 2021, emerging data suggest that vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 wanes after the second dose of the vaccine in all authorized populations. The FDA has determined that the known and potential benefits of a single booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for children 5 through 11 years of age at least five months after completing a primary series outweigh its known and potential risks and that a booster dose can help provide continued protection against COVID-19 in this and older age groups.”

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-expands-eligibility-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-booster-dose

The February recall of baby formula has severely impacted many families across the country. We have been following this closely and would like to share the following Q&A link from healthychildren.org. This may help answer many of your questions.

Update as of 5/18/2022: President Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act which is intended to “to speed production of infant formula and authorized flights to import supply from overseas”. As part of this invocation, this “requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill orders from those companies before other customers, in an effort to eliminate production bottlenecks. Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly formula supplies that meet federal standards from overseas to the U.S.” https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-government-and-politics-df586c2e52b5e5865ea9f8091d4d1f80

Please contact our office with any additional questions.

Thank you!

We wish to share the news that Dr. Heather Begley will not be returning from maternity leave. Her last day with our practice will be June 18th.

Joining Lake Forest Pediatrics in July of 2012, Dr. Begley has provided great care to her patients. She has said this was an extremely difficult decision, but one that is necessary for her family. We wish her and her family well.

Our Front Desk and Patient Education staff may have already spoken with you, or you may have already received a letter from us in the mail, but please know that we wish to avoid any possible interruptions in your child’s care. On our “Meet Our Providers” page, you may find brief bios of other members of our practice. Each are Board Certified in Pediatrics and are on-staff at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital, and all are dedicated to delivering the best care that every person deserves.

Please feel free to let our front office staff know which physician you would like to see at your next visit. Should your insurance plan require you to select a primary care physician, you may inform them of which physician you have chosen, effective 6/19/2022.

If you have any questions or if you need anything, please contact our office at 847-295-1220.

Thank you for the continued privilege of providing care for your child.

We’re wishing you a Happy Memorial Day! Enjoy your time off with family and friends as we all count our blessings and remember those who gave their lives for our country.

In honor of Memorial Day, we will have limited office hours at the Lake Bluff Office (urgent care only) and the Lindenhurst and Vernon Hills Offices will be closed. However, we are available for urgent concerns 24/7/365 through our on-call provider via phone at 847-295-1220.

Memorial Day Office Hours – Monday, May 30

Lake Bluff Office
The Lake Bluff Office is open for scheduled urgent care appointments from 8 am – noon.
Call us at 847-295-1220 on Monday at 8 am to make an urgent care appointment.

Lindenhurst Office
Closed

Vernon Hills Office
Closed

Some patients who have received an invoice from us recently have reported that they were unable to pay their bill on the Patient Portal. Instead of showing a balance due, their account shows a $0 balance. We apologize for the inconvenience! This issue is not affecting all accounts.

We notified Intergy, our practice’s Electronic Medical Record system provider, and they are working on a solution.

If you receive an invoice from our office, log in to the portal and see a $0 balance on the Portal, you are still able to make a payment, and it will still be properly credited to your account.

Thank you.

Latest CDC News and Guidance:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html

COVID-19 Test Results

Quest Diagnostics handles the PCR tests administered in our practice. Please understand that laboratories like Quest have seen significant increases in tests volume and while results had normally taken 2-3 days, they may take up to 5 days during this current Omicron wave. Please know that we will contact you when results come in. If you are registered for our patient portal, results will also be posted there. You may also use the following options:

• Calling Quest at 866-697-8378
• Logging into the MyQuest portal at https://questdiagnostics.com/MyQuest

COVID-19 Vaccine

We’re now taking appointments for the COVID vaccine, ages 6 months and older! Please contact our office to schedule an appointment.

We have been asked which vaccine we recommend for children. We only recommend that children receive a COVID vaccine, but we do not have a preference for which one they get. We will, however, only have the Pfizer vaccine in our office.

COVID-19 Information

The disease in children is generally mild and not unlike the other cold and flu infections you may have helped your children through in the past. Serious complications including the possibility of a post Covid-19 multisystem inflammatory response remain rare.

Symptoms

Any one of the following symptoms in a child can be consistent with Covid-19: runny nose or congestion, headache, sore throat, cough, shortness of breath, fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea or vomiting, poor appetite or poor feeding, diarrhea, loss of smell or taste. These symptoms are the same as seen in multiple other infections making it impossible to distinguish who has Covid-19 vs another viral or bacterial infection. Children can also be asymptomatic yet shed the virus and infect others.

Multisystem inflammatory disease is a severe illness marked by high fever and often intense abdominal pain. Patients are often very weak and appear very ill. It is felt to be a complication that arises from an immune reaction several weeks after a Covid -19 infection as patients usually test positive for antibodies to the virus and not the virus itself.

Testing

ASYMPTOMATIC CHILDREN

We are NOW able to do asymptomatic screening in our office. The current Waukegan testing site, as well as few others, will also do these tests. Testing sites are available at https://www.lakecountyil.gov/4435/COVID-19-Testing That page includes the testing criteria for each site.

ILL CHILDREN

Testing has become more available over the past months and is available at our office (as long as our supplies are available) as well as various sites across the county. While having a positive test will not alter any treatment, it has become important as daycare and schools reopen to guide them when an ill child may return. Testing will also become important for contact tracing as that ability increases in the coming months. Our testing supplies are limited by national shortages and we cannot guarantee this ability on any given day but so far, we have been able to obtain them. Supply issues may worsen as the need for testing increases with the reopening of schools and daycares.

A NEGATIVE COVID TEST IS REQUIRED FOR ANY ONE OF THE ABOVE LISTED SYMPTOMS IN ORDER TO RETURN TO SCHOOL OR DAYCARE PER THE ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH as even very mildly ill children can be positive and can shed virus for up to 10 days even if they have recovered from very brief symptoms. The child and family members should quarantine pending the test results which can take several days. A diagnosis of an ear infection or a positive test for flu or strep throat does NOT rule out Covid-19 as many patients have been found to have both infections at the same time. Covid-19 testing and quarantine are still needed even with these diagnoses. There will be VERY few children that can be sent back to school or daycare with an alternative diagnosis and no Covid-19 test. We understand this will be frustrating for families but the public health department feels this if the best way to keep our schools and daycares safe and open.

QUICK TESTS

We offer in-office same day test for Covid-19. The test we offer is the BD Veritor rapid antigen test (as long as our supplies continue). This gives a result in about 30 minutes and can be used for most symptomatic children. It is less accurate for asymptomatic screening or when symptoms have been present for more than 5 days. Some schools and exposure situations require the PCR test, which we send to Quest Diagnostics, which has a turnaround time of 3-8 days, depending on their backlog at the time.

While the rapid test is not as accurate as the PCR test, the ID specialists at Lurie Children’s feel it is a reliable test in children as they have higher viral loads than adults. In certain, higher-risk situations, a backup PCR test may be recommended if the antigen test is negative.

IMMUNITY TESTS

If we knew contracting Covid-19 would give you lifelong immunity to this virus, an accurate verified test to see if you are immune would be extremely useful to us all. Unfortunately, all the tests have some false negative and false positive rates and may cross-react with other strains of coronaviruses. We also do not know if these antibodies we are testing for are the ones that give you immunity and even if they are, we do not know how long that immunity will last. Immunity to some of the other strains of coronavirus shows immunity starting to decrease after about 4 months with no immunity remaining after several years. We also do not know what level of antibodies will give you protection-you may test positive for a low level that will not protect you.

As we learn more and verify some of these tests, they will at first be helpful when testing large numbers of people to have a rough idea of how many people have been infected in a given area. Until we know a lot more, they will not be helpful for a given individual and we are not recommending them.

Office Information

In order to keep staff and patients safe we have instituted separate procedures for sick children and have them wait in their cars until their room is ready. They then enter the building through a separate entrance than well children do. These hours are currently at the end of each morning and the end of each afternoon in Lake Bluff and Lindenhurst. Vernon Hills currently is well visits only but will offer late morning ill appointments and early evening well visits. Illness hours will be expanded as needed once we are into cold/flu season. Testing is available at our office but is not guaranteed due to national shortages of supplies.

We are taking numerous precautions to protect your well child while visiting the office. We are contacting each patient shortly before their appointment to assure no one is ill in any way nor been exposed to anyone with Covid-19. We are asking that only one parent and no siblings come in with the child if possible. Our waiting areas have adequate spacing for social distancing.

Sick patients will wait in their cars until their rooms are ready and enter the office through a separate entrance. Rooms are being thoroughly wiped down between all patients. Providers will be wearing gloves, masks, gowns and goggles where appropriate with ill children to prevent any spread of the virus.

Well visits are considered essential care and we especially do not want anyone to fall behind on their immunizations. We are seeing all ages in all of our offices. Well visits will be either at a separate time of day or in a separate area of the office than ill children. Weekend appointments are available and we will also begin to have some early evening well appointments starting in October at our Vernon Hills office Monday through Thursday.

Dear patients, parents, and guardians,

Since the summer, we have experienced a dramatic increase in calls to our office, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Your time is valuable and we are working very hard to reduce hold times.

We have been revamping our internal workflows and have also rolled out more self-service options for you in the hope that these changes will reduce the number of calls we’re receiving and also reduce the time you spend on the phone with our staff.

We have general appointment requests (link), morning sick call requests (link), COVID vaccination appointment requests (link), symptom checker (link), a COVID vaccine FAQ (link), and more.

Using our Patient Portal (link) will also help you save time if you’re looking for medical records, lab results, or if you want to make a prescription refill request.

We’re not done with making changes, and will continue to retool our workflows in order to better serve you.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!