Policies

In order to avoid longer than necessary wait times, please notify the office if you will be late for your scheduled appointment. We will make every effort to still have your child seen the same day, but we may have to offer a different appointment time, ask you to see a different provider, or (out of courtesy to our other patients) ask you to reschedule the appointment.

We understand that many children in our office have parents who are divorced or separated. It is our hope that divorced/separated parents will still communicate and work well together in the best interests of the child (or children).

Shared parental decision-making responsibility, previously known as “joint custody”, means that each parent has equal access to the child or children’s medical records. When asked, we will discuss with a parent what medical information the other parent told the doctor during a visit. We will not routinely notify the other parent when a child is being seen in our office or call the other parent for consent to treatment.

Should the issues that come between parents and/or other caregivers become disruptive to our office, we will ask the parents and the patient(s) to leave our office and return once the issues are resolved. If the issues cannot be resolved, we will discharge the patient from further treatment by our office. We will not hesitate to call the authorities if anyone in our office (parents, caregivers, patients, etc.) threatens harm to another person.

HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices Policy

Aviso De Política De Prácticas De Privacidad De HIPAA

For ongoing medications, please submit requests for prescription refills to your pharmacy. For ADHD medication refills, please call our office during normal business hours to request the refill. Prescription renewals are handled Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm. Please allow 48 hours to accommodate your request.

If your child's prescription is running low, please do not wait until the weekend or until the medication has completely run out. If you are planning to travel out of town, please make sure your child has enough medication for the trip.

In order to provide the best patient care, we ask that you notify the office if you are unable to keep your scheduled appointment. This policy was developed to provide same day appointments for those who need to be seen. If someone makes an appointment and does not show up or cancel in a timely manner, then we have lost an available appointment for another child who may be acutely ill.

Discrimination Is Against The Law! Brighton Pediatrics complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. This means we will not exclude anyone or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.

Brighton Pediatrics provides free aids and services to people with disabilities to communicate effectively, such as:

• Qualified sign language interpreters
• Written information in other formats (large print, audio, accessible electronic formats, other formats)

Brighton Pediatrics provides free language services to people whose primary language is not English, such as:

• Qualified interpreters
• Information written in other languages

If you need these services, please contact our office manager.

Patients are seen on an appointment basis. Our office is available to assist you in scheduling your child’s appointment. You may call our office to schedule your child’s appointment any time during our normal business hours. Saturday visits are reserved for same-day sick children, follow-up visits requested by a provider, and for newborns that need to have their weight checked. We do not schedule well child visits on Saturdays.

If you would like us to see more than one child, please schedule an appointment for all of your children who need to be seen. This allows the provider to spend appropriate time with each child. Without an appointment, we may not be able to see a sibling, and/or you may be asked to wait while the provider sees a scheduled patient who may be waiting.

Sports participation gives children the opportunity to build character, express themselves, and get the recommended 30-60 minutes of physical activity per day. We want every child to be able to participate in sports as safely as possible. Because of this, we perform comprehensive pre-participation sports evaluations for all athletes as requested by the school districts or parents. The sports evaluation is included in the yearly physical for each child or teen.

The benefit of having your sports evaluation done at the same time as the yearly physical is that we have the opportunity to address all the health and emotional issues at that time, rather than just giving clearance for someone to do sports.

If your child requires a sports physical, please make every effort to join them for the visit so we can ask you important questions about your child’s health and family history.

Beginning at age 18, a patient can make his or her own decisions regarding medical care and treatment including immunizations.  Prior to the 18th birthday, teenagers should generally be accompanied to the office by a parent or guardian who can provide consent for treatment.  If the teenager wishes or agrees, the parent or guardian may be asked to wait in the waiting room while the teenager is speaking with the provider in private or being examined. Anything discussed with the provider in private shall remain that way unless the provider is required to discuss information with others in order to keep the teenager safe (for example- the teenager is actively suicidal and needs immediate care to remain safe).

There are a few exceptions where a teenager under 18 years of age can consent for all of their own treatment.  These include a teenager who is 15 years of age or older who lives apart from his or her parents and is managing his or her own financial affairs, or a teenager who is married. A teenager who is pregnant can consent for her own prenatal care and for the care of her child once it is born.

Also, a physician may legally provide birth control services, confidential diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and confidential treatment for drug addiction or abuse at the request of a teenage patient without the consent of the parent.

Ref: COPIC, “Minors and Risk,” July 2012

• We firmly believe in the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent serious illness and to save lives.

• We firmly believe in the safety of our vaccines.

• We firmly believe that all children and young adults should receive all of the recommended vaccines according to the schedule published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics(AAP).

• We firmly believe, based on all available literature, evidence, and current studies, that vaccines do not cause autism or other developmental disabilities.

• We firmly believe that thimerosal, a preservative that has been in vaccines for decades and remains in some vaccines, does not cause autism or other developmental disabilities.

• We firmly believe that vaccinating children and young adults may be the single most important health promoting intervention we perform as health care providers, and that you can support as parents/caregivers.

The recommended vaccines and the schedule of administration are the results of years and years of scientific study and data-gathering on millions of children by thousands of our brightest scientists and physicians.

The vaccine campaign is truly a victim of its own success. It is precisely because vaccines are so effective at preventing illness that we are even discussing whether or not they should be given. Because of vaccines, many of you have never seen a child with polio, tetanus, whooping cough, bacterial meningitis, or even chickenpox, or known a friend or family member whose child died of one of these diseases. Such success can make us complacent or even lazy about vaccinating. But such an attitude, if it becomes widespread, can only lead to tragic results.

Over the past several years, many people in Europe have chosen not to vaccinate their children with the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine after publication of an unfounded suspicion (later retracted) that the vaccine caused autism. As a result of under-immunization, there have been small outbreaks of measles and several deaths from complications of measles in Europe over the past several years. The United States experienced a record number of measles cases during 2019, with 1282 cases from 31 states reported to CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases(NCIRD). This is the greatest number of cases since measles elimination was documented in the U.S. in 2000.

Furthermore, we firmly believe that by not vaccinating your child, you are taking advantage of thousands of others who do vaccinate their children.  Even delaying or “breaking up the vaccines” to give one or two at a time over additional visits goes against expert recommendations, is not supported by any scientific data, could lead to unnecessary delays and errors, and can put your child, other children, and adults at risk for serious illness (or even death). It is therefore against our medical advice as professionals at Brighton Pediatrics.

As medical professionals, we feel strongly that vaccinating children on schedule with currently available vaccines is absolutely the right thing to do for all children and young adults. We are making you aware of this not to scare you or coerce you, but to emphasize the importance of vaccinating your child.

We understand parents’ concerns regarding vaccines and are willing to discuss concerns and answer questions about vaccines at any well child visit.