COVID triage machine 3000

—> You answered: rule out COVID only, the patient has symptoms, without known exposure, and they don’t need in-person exam with a physician. Here’s what to do for the patient and other members of your family.

Plan for the patient:

  • Test now. Home test kits are great for this. Test twice, 1 day apart. Follow the OHA’s recommendations on what to do with results/exposures. Tests can be purchased at many local pharmacy or grocery stores or delivered via services like Instacart. Some, like Walgreens, may be able to bill your insurance.

  • What about PCR testing? This is not necessary in most cases unless there is a specific reason, e.g. your child is or has contact with a medically fragile person and you need a higher degree of certainty, or if it is specifically required of your child. In such cases, call us to request a Telehealth visit with your doctor along with a parking lot swab. Yes, the Telehealth part is required (see FAQ for more info).

    • The swab may occur either before or after your visit. If before your visit, it will be resulted during your visit.

    • Note that swabs occurring after 4:30 pm may be resulted the following business day, otherwise they will be same day. We use in-house PCR testing (~45 minute results).

    • Note that while your insurance should cover testing, any expenses not covered by your insurance will result in an out of pocket expense to you.

  • Monitor your child’s symptoms and contact us for evaluation as needed, just as you normally would for such symptoms (e.g. if you are concerned about an ear infection, or persisting fever, etc).

  • Urgent care for testing is not necessary for our patients unless it’s after hours and your child is in distress/symptoms that otherwise require urgent attention (see “urgent attention” in FAQ below).

Does anyone else in family need testing?

Not unless patient above tests positive or if family members need testing for other reasons, such as if they were directly exposed (< 6ft for > 15 minutes) to a confirmed COVID case, or if they have concerning symptoms themselves. If so, repeat the triage from their point of view to see if/when testing indicated. Note that at this time due to resource constraints we are not currently testing parents, but there are many local options for testing such as pharmacies, Curative, and urgent care centers.

Should we notify anyone?

Only if test result positive.

FAQ:

Why is a Telehealth visit required if all we need is a test? Ordering, performing and resulting any medical test requires gathering information, making a clinical assessment and then making a management recommendation. These are the basic components of a physician “evaluation and management” (“E&M”) required for medical tests and they must be documented in a patient chart. This evaluation and management can be brief if there's not much going on, but it does need to occur.

There are times when tests are performed on days other than when this E&M occurs, but that E&M has occurred and has been documented (eg if we order an anemia test during your child’s well check and they get it done a month later, the clinical decision to order that test was documented at that well check).

If you come in early for your child’s nasal swab and then skip the scheduled Telehealth visit, you will be responsible for a visit cancellation fee ($50) in addition to rescheduling that visit.

Definitions and other notes:

Patient: the person you are looking for advice or testing for (eg your child, yourself).

Index case = the contagious person who exposed your family to COVID.

Direct exposure = < 6 feet away for > 15 cumulative minutes over 24 hours or shared drink/being coughed/sneezed on.

“Potential Symptoms” include:

  • Fever or chills

  • Cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

  • Fatigue

  • Muscle or body aches

  • Headache

  • New loss of taste or smell

  • Sore throat

  • Congestion or runny nose

  • Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea

See this page for more information about COVID-19 symptoms.

*Urgent attention needs are essentially the same with COVID as any other viral illness. If your child is in respiratory distress (labored breathing, rapid breathing, unable to speak), severe lethargy/poor responsiveness, profuse vomiting, significant dehydration/urine output reduced below every 8 hours, or an infant less than 2 months old with fever. See our webpages for help with any of these topics, such as our common cold, flu, or dehydration pages. And remember, you’re not alone - if it’s not clear on these pages whether your child’s symptoms require immediate attention simply call us or page your doctor if after hours.

Important: this triage system is only applicable to established patients of Trailhead Pediatrics and is not general medical advice for the public, nor are our services available to patients who are not established in our care.

Same-day appointments

For urgent needs, same-day appointments are available Monday through Friday. Please call as early in the day as possible, the more notice we have the easier it is to fit everyone in. 

Need help outside of office hours?

Firstly, if your child has an emergency, please call 911 or go directly to the ER - they will contact us if needed once your child has been evaluated.

Urgent Care centers can also be helpful when something needs to be seen outside of office hours but it's not an emergency. 

For our list of preferred Urgent Cares and ERs, see our resources page.

And if you have something that might need urgent attention but you're not sure/don't know what to do, we can help: