Yes. You can schedule your child to be seen for sick visits. We can take care of problems such as strep, flu, urinary tract infections, abdominal pain, suture removals, etc . Of course, we will try to use the best combination of natural remedies and conventional treatments as is appropriate. Since our doctor also spent many years working in pediatric urgent care and the emergency room, he also has the added benefit of being able to recognize when your child is too sick and needs a higher level of care at the emergency department. The key is knowing when to use the natural remedies versus realizing it is time to use the conventional medicines. That is the art of the integrative medical model.
Although we may not always be able to get you in the same day (depending on how heavily we are already scheduled), we will always try as much as possible to get your child in as soon as we can. Usually, this is the same day or the next day when we are in the office. Please see below for additional information.
PLEASE NOTE:
As the practice has grown since its original opening, the general direction of the medicine practiced has become increasingly specialized. With the merger with Rossignol Medical Center in 2018, this has only accelerated. This is not to say we do not love doing primary care, but the needs of the complex, chronically ill kids have slowly become an increasing portion of the practice. This has resulted in much more travel and absences from the office, as Dr. Dane is a frequent lecturer at multiple autism conferences (TACA, NAA and as a faculty member at MAPS conferences). Additionally he has been asked to help in areas with relatively poor access to the biomedical/integrative model of care for kids with these complex chronic diseases. This means that he is spending increasing time in various parts of the country (e.g. Colorado, Maryland, Florida) seeing patients in areas away from Southern California. As a result, there will be frequent times when he will NOT be in the office to take same day/ sick visits. (For example, he is doing 1 week per month on average in the Denver area consulting for another medical practice).
We realize this is going to represent an inconvenience for some families, but the difficult decision was made that these other families of complex chronically ill kids desperately needed the help that they are often unable to access. If this is going to be major problem for your family, if you need us to be here 24/7 in case your child gets sick and you are not willing to go to an urgent care facility for the rapid flu test or an ear check than any urgent care doctor can easily perform for you, then this probably is not going to be the best practice for you. There are many other practices out there with a dozen doctors to take call, share weekend work, cover holidays, etc. There are no shortages of practices that can better meet those needs, and would encourage you to utilize those practices if the more limited availability is going to upset you. There is only 1 doctor to cover our patients and can only do so much. We are looking to find someone who can possibly come to the practice and cover on the days he is gone, but finding someone that has the balance between natural and allopathic knowledge has been difficult and therefore rather than bring just anyone in, it was felt it was better to have no one at all.