During the current COVID-19 pandemic our utmost priority is the health of our patients, staff, and community. After evaluating the most current information and reviewing published guidelines, we remain confident in our ability to provide dermatological care in a safe and healthy environment at Highlander Dermatology.
We recommend any patient stay home if they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
We want to limit contact and reduce person-to-person exposure in our community, to our patients and to our staff. If you are feeling ill, have a fever, cough, or shortness of breath, we kindly ask that you call our office and reschedule your appointment.
If you have an appointment and are feeling healthy, we plan to continue to stay open and see patients as long as guidelines and recommendations permit us to do so. We are closely monitoring updates from the Centers for Disease Control and WHO and will continue to seek guidance from these agencies and local public health officials. With new information, we will make the necessary adjustments to our operations and will keep you informed of any changes.
We will continue to maintain a clean and safe environment and continue to comply with OSHA and CDC infection control guidelines. We have standard protocols in place to disinfect all surfaces and patient contact areas. We have expanded and increased the frequency of cleaning and disinfection of all common areas and facilities. Each patient room will be thoroughly disinfected after each patient.
We also ask that if you have traveled outside of Wisconsin within the last two weeks, alert our staff prior to your appointment. If you have traveled or have returned from a cruise, we may ask you to reschedule.
For more information, questions or to reschedule an appointment, please call our office at (262) 290-4540.
Sincerely,
Drs. Straka and Kleven
Courtney Papp, PA-C
The staff at HIGHLANDER DERMATOLOGY LLC
We recommend any patient stay home if they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
We are aware of the increase in a number of coronavirus cases in the US and are continuously monitoring and reviewing this matter, especially as it pertains to our patients and staff. Our greatest concern is for our patients who are on prescriptions for skin, hair, or mucosal diseases that may alter and weaken the function of their immune system. For patients on these medications, if they feel like they have an infection of any sort, we recommend they hold their medication until they feel well again—having recovered from the infection.
There are many unknowns about susceptibility to the coronavirus infection and exactly why it may affect some individuals more severely than others. Certainly, it stands to reason that the medication you take does alter and, in some ways, suppress the immune system. This would raise concern it could potentially increase the severity of any infection—including a coronavirus infection. Under the current circumstances, the decision to either continue or stop your medication is not an easy one to make. If you do choose to stop it, please contact our office for alternative therapeutic options.
We understand that naturally many of our patients would have additional questions. Each person’s circumstances are unique. In addition to this information, here are two sources of information you may consider. First, the CDC government web page on coronavirus is an excellent resource.
If you feel any signs or symptoms of an infection, discontinue your medicine immediately. If these symptoms persist or worsen, consider consulting with your primary care physician or local emergency room.
For additional information about coronavirus, please refer to the CDC webpage: Frequently Asked Questions, or the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak page of the World Health Organization: Corona Virus Disease.
Medications
We are still seeing patients with certain safety protocols per present recommendations.
Quick review:
1) Urgent appointments for in-person visits are being made available daily,
in most instances you will be seen same-day pending availabiltiy.
(e.g. skin cancer, acute rashes, ruptured cysts, severe skin conditions, etc.)
2) Cancer surgeries will continue without interruption
3) Non-urgent appointments will be made and done with ‘video chat’ platforms,
billed through your insurance. (e.g. acne, rosacea, lesion check, mild rashes or
maintenance therapy checks, isotretinoin, etc.)
4) Cosmetic procedures are considered non-urgent and thusly unable to make
appointments for these until mid April. This date is subject to change.
NON-URGENT appointments can still be made. During this unprecedented time in our history we have made accommodations to meet the dermatologic needs of our patients. Highlander has added an easier access option to our telehealth dermatology platform. We will be scheduling live video appointments.
If you would like to schedule an online visit with one of our providers, please call our office. At the appointment time, your physician or PA will contact you via video with either FaceTime or Skype. At present, all visits will be submitted through your insurance plan as accommodations have been made by almost all insurers including medicare, to cover telehealth visits during this time.
URGENT in-office appointments can be scheduled without interruption as previous. Same day appointments have been expanded to assure care is available and to unburden Urgent Care departments and Emergency departments. We have also expanded our visits to accept lacerations, burns and other skin injuries to be seen urgently during our office hours.
Based on recent changes in recommendations by the CDC to postpone routine and non-urgent doctor visits, we are now recommending ONLY urgent face-to-face dermatologic visits and surgeries at our clinic with non-urgent issues to be seen with Telehealth. Accordingly, we still require any patient with symptoms of possible COVID-19, including fever, cough, respiratory symptoms, to not come into the office. Our protocol and recommendations will adapt as the situation unfolds over the coming weeks.
Copyright © 2018 Highlander Dermatology LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Updated March 20, 2020