Staunton Primary Care is issuing a COVID-19 healthcare advisory to our members and making common-sense updates to our clinical operations effective through April 27, 2020.
We are still open and accepting new patients.
For the safety, health, and wellbeing of our members, we will reschedule non-urgent clinic visits, encourage the use of HIPAA compliant TeleMed visits, and provide medication refills by mail.
Please review the steps we are taking to remain proactive as we respond to COVID-19 and the public health impact:
Why is everything closing for COVID-19?
The goal of fighting a pandemic is to completely halt the spread. By using techniques such as school closures, staffing level changes in companies, we’re working to protect our communities from the spread of the virus. This reduces the number of cases that are active at any given time which, in turn, gives doctors, hospitals, police, schools, government agencies, and vaccine-manufacturers time to prepare and respond without becoming overwhelmed.
As explained in the graph above, a high curve means the virus is spreading fast. A low curve shows that the virus is spreading more slowly. Keeping the curve down diminishes the rate at which new cases occur and prevents overtaxing healthcare resources (represented by the dotted line) available to treat them. Hence, if we mitigate exposure by closure, we can essentially get in front of the virus and minimize the number of people infected, decrease the economic impacts long-term, and, most importantly, improve the health and wellness of our community.
COVID-19 Symptoms
Realistically, it isn’t feasible to test everyone who is sick in the US. Therefore, most health officials believe it is important to prioritize the testing of people who need it the most: those at high risk such as health care workers who have been in contact with COVID-19 patients; symptomatic people in areas with high infection rates; and people 60 years of age and older with chronic health issues, such as heart disease, lung disease or diabetes.
At this time we are offering testing ONLY for appropriate patients who are members of the practice. Please understand we have limited testing supplies.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE TESTED IF:
YOU MIGHT NEED TESTING IF:
You must CALL first to be evaluated and before you can come to the office. This process may change as we expect testing to become centralized through the hospital systems. We will keep you updated as we learn more.