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Memorial Day Holiday Hours

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

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

Patient Portal Billing Update

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

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.

COVID-19 Resource Center

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

Latest CDC News and Guidance:

https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/guidance/respiratory-virus-guidance.html

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.

A Message to Patients, Parents, and Guardians

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

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!

Lake Forest Pediatrics wins eHealthcare Leadership Awards’ “Best Site Design” for 2021

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

We are proud to announce that Lake Forest Pediatric Associates has won eHealthcare Awards’ “Best Site Design” for 2021! According to eHealthcare Leadership Awards, entrants are judged based on the following questions:

  • Is the web design unusual, attractive, and engaging?
  • Does the design facilitate access to key site information?
  • Does it provide strong branding and excellent usability?

We take pride in our ability to provide accurate information to our patients in the most convenient way possible, and we thank eHealthcare for their recognition of our website. Check out all of the 2021 winners here.

eHealthcare Leadership Awards Winner 2021

2021 Holiday Hours and Open Offices

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

Our Vernon Hills office will be closed 12/20 through 12/31, and will reopen with standard office hours on Monday 1/3/22.

Please see below for the schedule changes related to our Lake Bluff and Lindenhurst offices during these next two weeks:

 

CHRISTMAS EVE, Friday, 12/24/21

Lake Bluff Only. 8:00am – Noon.

By appointment only for urgent care until Noon.

Vernon Hills & Lindenhurst offices are Closed.

 

CHRISTMAS DAY, Saturday, 12/25/21

All offices are closed.

On-call provider is available for urgent matters.

 

Sunday, 12/26/21

Lake Bluff Only. 8:00am – Noon.

By appointment only for urgent care until Noon.

Vernon Hills & Lindenhurst offices are Closed.

 

 

NEW YEARS EVE, Friday, 12/31/21

Lake Bluff Only. 8:00am – Noon.

By appointment only for urgent care until Noon.

Vernon Hills & Lindenhurst offices are Closed.

 

NEW YEARS DAY, Saturday, 1/1/22

Lake Bluff Only. 8:00am – Noon.

By appointment only for urgent care until Noon.

Vernon Hills & Lindenhurst offices are Closed.

 

Sunday, 1/2/22

Lake Bluff Only. 8:00am – Noon.

By appointment only for urgent care until Noon.

Vernon Hills & Lindenhurst offices are Closed.

ACIP Approves COVID Vaccine for Children Aged 5-11

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

Today, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) approved the use of a COVID Vaccine for Children aged 5-11. This follows the recently announced approval by the FDA. Read about it here.

Now vaccine manufacturers and state agencies may begin to ship the vaccines to medical offices. Governor Pritzker has recommended patients get the vaccine from their pediatrician, and we are doing all we can to be able to provide that to our patients. We are working closely with the State of Illinois and the Lake County Health Department on securing vaccine supplies.

We’re hoping it will be quick, but at this time, we do not have a timeframe….for either how quickly the state can send out vaccines or how long shipping will take. We also do not know how many doses we will receive in the first few shipments and we ask your patience in the coming weeks. According to a recent NBC article, the State of Illinois has initially secured “306,000 doses for kids 5-11, with an additional 73,000 doses for the city of Chicago and more than 100,000 headed to federal government pharmacy partners”.

 

The process at Lake Forest Pediatric Associates will work as follows:

1. Parents/guardians will submit a short form to request 1 appointment online (and will make their 2nd dose appointment while in the office at their 1st vaccination) here: https://lakeforestpediatrics.com/covid-vaccine-appointments/.

2. Parents/guardians will be allowed to input multiple sibling names in the same appointment request (no need to make multiple appointment requests for each individual child).

3. Once the request has been submitted, it will be time-stamped in our system for a return call from our Front Desk personnel.

 

* PLEASE NOTE:

When you submit the request form and see the following message,

“Thank You for your form submission. We will contact you as soon as we are able in order to schedule your vaccine appointment”,

your vaccine appointment request has been received by our system. This is your confirmation that your appointment request has been received.

Please be patient and wait for a team member to give you a call to set up your child’s/children’s appointment. Please do not call the office – we have received your appointment request and we will call you when an appointment is available.

 

4. Our Front Desk personnel will call you. Appointments will be made in the order in which the appointment request was received and based on our expected vaccine supply.

For more answers to your Frequently Asked Questions about the COVID vaccine for kids under 12, see this article from Lurie Children’s.

FDA and ACIP Have Approved COVID Vaccine for Kids under 12 Years

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

The FDA and ACIP have approved the COVID vaccine for children aged 5-11 years.

The most common questions asked by parents/guardians so far are:

  1. Can my child receive the COVID vaccine if he/she has received another vaccine recently?
    1. Currently, the CDC states that “COVID-19 vaccines may be administered without regard to timing of other vaccines. This includes simultaneous administration of COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines on the same day.” Link
  2. Can my child receive the COVID vaccine if he/she has has COVID recently?
    1. The CDC states that “COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for everyone aged 5 years and older, regardless of a history of symptomatic or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection; this includes people with prolonged post-COVID-19 symptoms and applies to primary series doses, additional primary doses, and booster doses.” Link
    2. Further, the CDC also states that “people with known current SARS-CoV-2 infection should defer vaccination at least until recovery from the acute illness (if symptoms were present) has been achieved and criteria to discontinue isolation have been met.” Link
  3. What if my child is 11 and almost 12? What dose should he/she receive?
    1. The CDC states that “children should receive the vaccine dosage and formulation based on their age on the day of vaccination with each dose. If a child turns 12 years old between their first and second dose, they should receive the age-appropriate 30 µg Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (purple cap) formulation or COMIRNATY for their second dose to complete their series. However, the FDA authorization allows children who will turn from 11 years to 12 years of age between their first and second dose in the primary regimen to receive, for either dose, either: (1) the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine formulation for children aged 5–11 years (each 0.2 ml dose containing 10 µg in an orange cap vial); or (2) COMIRNATY or the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine formulation authorized for use in individuals 12 years of age and older (each 0.3 mL dose containing 30 mcg in a purple cap vial). If such dosing occurred, the child is considered fully vaccinated. This is not considered an error and VAERS reporting is not indicated.” Link

Please use the following link to submit an appointment request. Once a request has been submitted, it will be time-stamped in our system for a return call from our Front Desk staff. When you see the following message: “Thank you for your form submission…” your vaccine appointment request has been received by our system. Please be patient and wait for our team members to give you a call to set up the appointment.

We are so proud to serve our community, thank you for your patience during this process. And while we want to be able to provide the vaccine to all our patients, our supply and clinic schedules may push appointments out several weeks. And at this time, due to incredibly high demand, if you are able to receive the vaccine from your school or local pharmacy, we recommend that as an alternative site for your child.

Skip the Wait: Login Online, to our Website or to our Patient Portal

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

With the unprecedented number of #pediatric illnesses we’re seeing this fall, calls to the offices have increased dramatically. And phone wait times are increasing too.

Skip The Wait by reaching out to us online, on the website or on the Patient Portal for non-emergent issues. You can make an appointment: https://lakeforestpediatrics.com/appointments/ or a sick call appointment: https://lakeforestpediatrics.com/morning-sick-calls/ on the website.  Request lab results and prescription refills on our Patient Portal: https://myhealthrecord.com/Portal/SSO. If you need to speak with a team member, you can request that on the Patient Portal too and we’ll call you back.

We are doing our best to address everyone’s concerns and appreciate your understanding. If you call the offices and find yourself on hold, please DO NOT hang up as you will lose your place in line. When you call back again later, you will be at the end of the line.

Dr. Chou’s Retirement

Posted on by Lake Forest Pediatric Associates in

We wish to share the news that Dr. Cynthia Chou is retiring. Her last day at the office will be November 4th.

Joining Lake Forest Pediatrics in September of 1999, Dr. Chou has provided great care to her patients. We wish her well and hope she enjoys more time with her family.

Dr. Chou 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 11/5/21.

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.