Pediatrician response time

Just curious: how long does it take to get a call back from your pediatrician when you call with a concern? Does the pediatrician generally call back or do you get a nurse practitioner? We like our pediatrician, but are having some issues with response time and getting a hold of her and are wondering what is normal and can be expected. Thanks!

 

Usually about 6 hours for me. I don't mind if the nurse calls me back, though.

 

Anywhere from 2-4 hours. Depends on the seriousness of the issue. And it is often the nurse calling back unless I specifically ask for the doctor.

 

Mine....they make calls at the end of the day, no matter what time I call. Sometimes it's even the next day. I'm not thrilled with our dr's office. And it's ALWAYS the nurse who calls back, never the dr.

 

If I call about a concern, a nurse calls me back, usually within an hour or two. If we've met with the Dr and are needing answers about something like test results or something he's checking on, he calls me back when he can. Who knows on time for that, because it depends on the test or situation.

 

I usually don't call just with a question, and it seems when I do, they have me bring them in. The office staff does call after every appointment to check up on the child who was in. When I have called after hours with a concern, the doctor usually calls me back within 15-20 minutes.

 

They don't do call backs for us, it's either make an appt (soonest is usually 2-3 weeks out) or go to the ER/urgent care.

 

Within an hour usually.

 

I take my girls to a pretty large practice. So I normally get a call back from a nurse if it's during the day. Normally daytime questions are pretty basic (is this med ok? how much is the dosage for this med? should we make an appointment?). Daytime call backs vary depending on how busy they are but it's normally at least an hour or two. The one time I had to call after hours with Vivi was when she fell and broke her front tooth in the bath tub. I had to leave a message for the on-call doc but they called me back within 10 or 15 minutes and provided me with enough reassurances that I didn't totally freak out the whole night and a recommendation that I take her to a pediatric dentist in the morning.

 

Do you mean during the day, or after hours?

During the day, my pediatrician has a nurse's line where you leave messages. Usually I get a call back within 30 minutes or so, depending on the time of day, but I really don't think it's ever been more than an hour. If it's something pretty routine, like one my kids needs some Tylenol and I want to make sure I'm giving the right dose, the nurse will answer that herself. If it's something that the doctor needs to answer, the nurse will ask the doctor and then call me back.

I've only called a few times after hours, and even then, I got a call back pretty quickly, again, usually within 30 minutes.

We absolutely love our pediatrician's office. They are great in pretty much every way. I wish MY doctor was so good - sometimes I don't get a call back from them for several days.

 

If its during working hours I can call the medical advice line, sometimes I get the nurse, sometimes the machine, heck I've even gotten my pedi before. If I leave a message I get a call within the hour, although I don't think its ever been longer than 30 min before I've gotten a call. My pedi gave us her cell number to call her after hours if we had any problems. Shes absolutely phenomenal! !!!

 

I usually get a call the same day, usually a nurse. I can also email in questions and the dr actually answers them within a few hours.

 

Our ped is way too slow with call backs. It is always the nurse and usually takes multiple hours, even for simple questions. I don't mind talking to the nurse (actually prefer it)and I like the doctor but have a problem with the call back wait time.
I called another peds office and asked about their call back policies. They said within an hour. I would have changed Drs already but DH really likes this Dr. so while he is still accompanying me we will stay.

I feel the most important thing a Dr can do is pay attention. The most brilliant Dr in the world can't help you if they aren't paying attention. Call back time is a direct reflection on how busy they are AKA how much time they have to pay attention.

ETA -in addition for our office phone conversions don't seem to make it into the chart. (example: instructions to change meds / doses.)

 

During the office hours, I usually get a call back from a nurse within a half hour or sooner. After hours when I've called, the doctor calls back within 15-30 minutes.

 

I take the kids to a family practice, and the doc also treats Tony and I (and my parents too!) but anyway...

if I call during the day and specifically ask the doc to call me back he usually does within a few hours - and that's ok because its usually something very specific I want to talk to him about, something urgent, usually within an hour and his nurse calls me back after checking with him...

after hours I've never waited more than 30 minutes for a call back, in fact the answering service always tells us if we don't hear in 45 minutes to call them back and they will re-page the doc (it may not be my doc but it is one of the docs in the conglomerate - they all take turns covering for each other)...

way back when the twins were born he told me that no question was dumb (since we were first time parents) and to call anytime...I love my doc (and it helps that he's a hottie!)

 

Neither of the pediatricians we've gone to here do call backs. If I call during the day for a question, they tell me to schedule an appointment. Or I can bring my kids in for the "urgent hour" - from 9 - 10 every morning it's first come first served. Then appointments start at 10. And they don't have an after hours number, so definitely no call backs then. I would switch if I could find a pediatrician here that ran their office like most (ie- call backs, nice office staff, etc.) but there just don't seem to be any good offices in my city.

 

Thank you so much for all the responses. It seems as though there is a wide range of normal, and my pediatrician fits some where in the middle. As a new parent I have lots of questions, many of which I look up on Google and then make a decision to call or not call... the Internet is both a blessing and a curse; sometimes it alleviates fears and sometimes it makes them worse . Have a great Friday, everyone!

 

If you are googling you might ask here first. I got a lot of really good, knowledgeable, concise advice here. AND you can't beat the response time!

 

After reading all the posts, I think we have pretty awesome doctors and nurses. During hours, they have nurses on call to answer all questions and make sick appointments. Usually with sick appts, they will be seen in the same day. After hours, we get calls back in 5-30 mins.

 

I used to work for a large pediatric practice. We had 4 nurses in triage who were trained to answer calls and give medical advice for most problems. So if you called, you might sit on hold for five minutes, but 85% of the times you would have an answer when you got off of the phone. The 15% of the time, the doctor who was on call would call you back, usually within 3 hours when they were done with the hospitals rotations. They would specifically block time to return phone calls. Of course, if it was a true emergency or even just urgent, the triage nurses would either give the question to whichever doctor was floating free in the hallways between patients, and the doctor would walk to the phone bank and talk to the parent right then. But that's one of the benefits of a very large practice. We had 12 doctors on staff, 9 in the office on any given day, at least one doctor making rounds at the hospital and making phone calls. We also had 3 Nurse Practitioners in rotation, one seeing patients and sharing rooms with the slow doctor, and one working the phone bank. (They usually work 12 hour shifts.) We were busy busy busy. (We would easily see 200 patients in a day.)

Our current practice is smaller. Only 3 doctors. The office staff is nice enough. The doctors though, they will call you back within two hours. Less time if it's urgent.

 

I agree Amy, twinstuff has been so valuable! Much better than random googling

 

I totally inderstand how you feel for being a new parent. I used to call our pedi office to ask million questions in the first yr lol. I always prepared like 2 pages long of questions for their pedi at every visit lol.

You should check your insurance see if it offers 24/7 nurse line. You can get many answers from it anytime. Gl!