New patient guide

Before your child’s scheduled appointment, you will receive a text message with details about the appointment, as well as a pre check-in registration that you should complete prior to arriving. This registration will review demographic and insurance information. It also includes an age-appropriate questionnaire for parents to complete.

MD Kids Pediatrics verifies and confirms all appointments on the schedule 2-3 days ahead of time and will reach out to you directly if any insurance issues are found.

Your appointment day is here! Once you arrive at the office, our medical receptionists will check for any updated information, collect forms and co-payments, and enter your driver’s license and insurance card into our computer system. We will verify your contact information at every visit, just to make sure we can get in touch with you if we need to — especially if your phone number or email address has changed.

While you are waiting, our medical assistants (MAs) and providers are busy seeing other patients and preparing your exam room. Because we have multiple providers seeing patients at one time, you may not be called back into an exam room in the order you arrived or were checked in. If someone goes back before you, they are most likely seeing a different provider who’s running on a different schedule.

We always try to be as fast and efficient as possible — however, we can’t always predict when other concerns, problems, or even emergencies will arise. We want to give every patient the time necessary to make the best possible assessment, provide the best possible care, and, of course, answer all questions and concerns. We do our best to let you know if your provider is running behind, but feel free to ask for an update if it seems like you have been waiting for a while.

Once your child is brought back to the exam room, one of our MAs will get a complete set of vital signs (height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure) and ask some necessary medical history questions. This information allows your provider to get a quick picture of what’s going on before entering the room, especially for sick visits. If you filled out the pre-visit questionnaire before your appointment, we should already have all the information we need. (Sometimes your provider may ask similar questions to try to pinpoint things more clearly.)

All of our MAs have medical training, so they will watch for any warning signs or “red flags” that come up when taking vitals and reviewing your child’s history. If they see a sign for concern — for instance, if a child who came in for cough and cold symptoms is now wheezing and breathing rapidly — they’ll get an available provider into the room right away. Situations like this are one reason why you may sometimes have a longer-than-usual wait. We’ll skip over the appointment order when it’s necessary to safeguard the health and safety of one of our patients.

Once all of your child’s information has been gathered, the MA will leave the exam room and let your provider know you’re ready to be seen.

It’s your turn! 

Your provider will review your child’s history, ask if you have any other questions or concerns, and then begin their exam for a well or sick visit. Once your provider has finished their exam (and made a diagnosis and recommended treatment for a sick visit), your child may need immunizations or additional testing or treatments in the office. If so, your provider alerts your MA, who will prepare and deliver whatever you need to complete the appointment.

Once your child’s exam and treatment are complete, you head back to the front office to check out. This is an ideal time to make your next appointment! You can also pick up any forms that need to be completed and/or any prescriptions or referrals that have been printed for you. If you have a balance due or are paying for the visit out of pocket, this is when you will make payment.

After you walk out the door, your visit still isn’t complete — at least on our end! 

First, your provider completes what we call an “office encounter” by putting all notes and documentation into your child’s chart. Once these visit notes are complete, you can see a summary of them in your patient portal account. (The summary is usually available by the end of the day, but could take up to 2-3 days to appear on the portal for various reasons.)

Next, the office notes are reviewed by our posters — the members of our staff who attach charges to bills and make sure they’re correct — before our billers submit them to your insurance company. Our billers then follow the charges and update your account after payment is received. 

We may not know until that time if certain charges or parts of your bill are covered by your insurance plan. If you still have a balance due, our billers will automatically charge your account (if you have a credit card on file) or prepare and send you a paper bill.

There’s another important group of people who you may not encounter in the office, but speak to frequently on the phone: our incredible clinical advice team. This group comprised of MAs, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses works together to answer all phone calls, questions, and concerns about your child's medical issues. They can usually answer most questions themselves — but for others, they may consult with one of our providers to get you the best possible care advice.

All members of our clinical advice team have medical training, so they’re the only ones besides our providers who can schedule telehealth sick appointments via the KidzDocNow app (available 24 hours a day) or, if necessary, refer you to the emergency room. Any care advice they discuss with you is recorded in your child’s electronic medical record and reviewed by a provider. Because of these records, we can access your child’s information and treat them with the same great care at any MD Kids Pediatrics office.

Our phones are monitored 24/7, 365 days a year. If our offices are closed, you can still reach a member of our clinical advice team. Just call, follow the prompts, and either our on-call team or our answering service will be ready to help you.