All visits require an appointment. Please call our office or send a message via the portal to schedule an appointment. It is helpful if you provide the staff with a summary of the patient’s symptoms or problem. We always make time in our daily schedule for same-day sick appointments. Please contact us before heading to an urgent care facility or emergency room and before coming to the office for a visit. Unfortunately, we are not always able to accomodate walk-in patients.

If you need a medication refill for a chronic condition, please make sure you give us at least two business days to process your request. When you call for the refill, please have the name of the medication, the dosage, your pharmacy address and phone number available. Also, please note that refills of all medications for chronic conditions require that the patient has had a visit with their provider in the past three months.

If you have a true medical emergency call 911 or proceed to the nearest emergency room. If you have an URGENT medical problem, call our office or our answering service so that one of our providers may assist you or direct you to the most appropriate place for care. As your medical home, we value the opportunity to coordinate your care and will promptly address all of your needs. Our providers are affiliated with Winthrop Hospital, Northwell Hospital at Manhasset, and Cohens Children’s Hospital.

Northshore Childrens Healthcare accepts a long list of insurances. Please remember to bring your insurance card with you to each visit and let us know if there are any changes to your insurance. If your insurance plan requires a primary care physician (PCP) please be sure one of our physicians is listed on your insurance card. If you need to change your PCP call the number on the back of the insurance card. We are happy to help you in the office if you have any difficulty changing your PCP. If your child is a newborn, please be sure the PCP is changed back to the baby’s birth date. Accepted insurances: Aetna, Affinity, all Savers, all Blue Cross plans, Blue Cross Health Plus, Champva, Cigna, Emblem, The Empire Plan, Fidelis, GHI, Health First, HIP, HIP Medicaid, Humana, 1199, Local Union plans, Magnacare, Medicaid, Meritain, Multiplan, all Oxford plans, Tristar, UMR, all United Healthcare plans, United Healthcare Community plans.

If your insurance plan requires a referral to see a specialist or a prior authorization for medication or a lab procedure, our office policy requires a minimum of 2 business days for processing. If you call us on the way to the specialist appointment, we may not be able to process your request and you may be asked to reschedule the appointment. We are not able to back date referrals or prior authorizations. To avoid any delays in processing, please contact our office for the referral or prior authorization as soon as you make the appointment with the specialist. Please make sure the specialist is contracted with your insurance plan and have their name, phone number and address available when you contact us for the referral or prior authorization.

All co-payments and past due balances are due at the time of service. For your convenience, we accept cash, personal check or credit cards. Our contracts with the insurance companies require that we verify eligibility and collect copays at each visit. Please bring your insurance card to every visit. We charge a $20 fee for all co-payments not paid at the time of visit. We also require a $25 fee for any check returned from your bank. If your insurance plan requires deductibles or coinsurance, these payments are due when the claim is processed. Please review the Explanation of Benefits sent to you by your insurance company for details on these charges. For your convenience, you may leave a credit card on file. If we do not have a card on file, a billing statement will be sent to you and we ask that you pay all balances promptly.