CORONAVIRUS UPDATE for Capital Medical Clinic patients

Safety is our highest priority.
We are screening all patients, physicians, and staff coming to the clinic by measuring their temperature and asking screening questions. We are sending anybody with a fever home and assessing their status through a telemedicine visit. To protect our patients and staff, we are not permitting anybody with symptoms of a respiratory infection to be seen in the clinic. After a phone consultation, patients with respiratory symptoms will be offered a telemedicine visit to have their symptoms evaluated. In addition, patients are only allowed one person to accompany them to their appointment.

AFTERNOON LAB:

The busiest time in our lab is between the hours of 7:30am – 12:00pm. To permit a safe space between patients, we are only allowing a certain number of patients in the lab waiting room at one time. Thus, to enable our patients to safely have their labs performed, we are encouraging our patients to get their labs performed in the afternoon. To incentive this, Capital Medical Clinic will pay the parking for patients with afternoon lab appointments

Some patients prefer morning labs because they want to be fasting. But a 2016 study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that fasting likely is not necessary after all. The study’s author looked at 3 meta-analyses (or collection of studies) and found the following:

-There was not a significant difference in the cholesterol levels whether people fasted or not.

-Fasting and non-fasting lipid levels had the same predictive power for whether people would have an adverse cardiac event such as a heart attack.

For these reasons, clinical practice guidelines have changed to endorse non-fasting labs in most circumstances. If fasting is important to you, an alternative to morning labs is to have an early breakfast (between 5:00am – 7:00am), wait 6 hours and then come to the clinic in the afternoon for lab work. 

If you are willing to reschedule your morning appointment to a time in the afternoon, please call our office at 512-454-5171.  Our afternoon lab hours are noon – 5pm, Monday through Friday. 

We now offer drive-by labs!

Due to COVID-19, some people prefer to enter as few buildings as possible. To address that concern, CMC now offers the option of having your labs drawn at our drive-by lab just outside our building. We will also continue to perform lab testing inside of our building if that is your preference. X-rays, bone density testing, EKGs, and urine testing can only be done at our indoor lab.

COVID-19 TESTING: CAPITAL MEDICAL CLINIC OFFERS SWAB & ANTIBODY testing in our drive up testing tent by appointment only, from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. We will file your insurance for all COVID services and testing. If you do not have insurance or your insurance does not cover the test, the cash price for the test is $75.

TELEMEDICINE:

Capital Medical Clinic is committed to you and your health. It is important at this time to limit your potential exposure. To maintain your routine visits with your physicians, schedule a telemedicine visit. During your telemedicine visit, you will communicate about your health concerns through a video connection. You can address acute concerns such as respiratory symptoms or your questions about COVID-19. You can also connect about the status of any chronic conditions your physician manages.

GET STARTED TODAY

AFTERHOURS TELEMEDICINE: If you have an urgent health issue and need access to care at night or on a weekend, one of our physicians or physician assistants is always available.  Call our after-hours answering service at 512-458-1121. You will be directed to one of our providers, who will determine if a telemedicine visit is necessary.

Annual Wellness Visits Even during the outbreak of COVID-19, preventive medicine is still important. Medicare patients can schedule their Annual Wellness Visits with a telemedicine visit. A person from our office will call you before your appointment to complete the health risk assessment.