New patient guide

Before your child’s scheduled appointment, you will receive a text message with details about the appointment and a pre check-in registration that you should complete prior to arriving. This registration reviews demographic and insurance information and includes an age-appropriate questionnaire for parents to complete.

Coastal Kids verifies and confirms all appointments on our schedule 2-3 days ahead of time, so expect to hear from us. We will also reach out if there are any insurance issues.

Your appointment day is here! Once you arrive at Coastal Kids, our medical receptionists will ask for any updated information, collect forms and co-pays, and scan your driver’s license and insurance card to check you into our computer system. We verify your contact information at every visit to make sure we can always get in touch with you — just in case your phone number or email address has changed.

During this time, our medical assistants (MAs) and providers are busy seeing other patients and preparing your exam room. Because we have multiple providers seeing patients at one time, you may not be called back into an exam room in the order you arrived or were checked in. If someone goes back before you, they are probably seeing a different provider who’s running on a different schedule — your turn will be coming soon.

Rest assured that we always try to be as quick and efficient as we can. But we also want to give each patient as much time as we need to provide the best possible care, make the most accurate assessment, and, of course, answer any questions and concerns. We can never predict when issues or even emergencies will arise, but we do our best to let you know when your provider is running behind. Does it feel like you’ve been waiting for a while? Please feel free to ask us for an update.

After your child is taken back to the exam room, one of our MAs will take their vital signs (including height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure) and ask some necessary medical history questions. This information allows your provider to get a brief idea of what’s going on before entering the exam room, especially if you are there for a sick visit. If you filled out a pre-visit questionnaire before your appointment, no medical history questions will be necessary — we already have the information we need. (Your provider may ask similar questions during the exam to guide the visit and assess your child’s symptoms.)

All Coastal Kids MAs have medical training, so they will be looking for any “red flags” when taking your child’s vital signs and reviewing their medical history. If there are any concerning issues — such as a child who came in for cough and cold symptoms but is wheezing and breathing rapidly — the MA will get an available provider into the exam room right away. Situations like these are often the reason behind longer-than-usual wait times, but sometimes we have to change our appointment order to safeguard the health and safety of our patients.

After we have all of your child’s information, the MA will leave the exam room and let your provider know you’re ready to be seen.

It’s your turn! 

Once your provider reviews your child’s medical history and asks if you have any questions or concerns, it’s time to begin the exam. After your provider has completed the well visit or made a diagnosis and recommended treatment for a sick visit, your child may need immunizations, further testing, or treatment in the office. If so, your provider will alert your MA, who then prepares and delivers whatever your child needs to complete the appointment.

Once your child’s exam and treatment are complete, you will go back to the front office to check out. Here, you can make your next appointment, get any prescriptions or referrals that were printed for you, or pick up any forms you need to complete. If you have a balance for the visit and/or plan to pay out of pocket, this is also when you make your payment.

After you walk out the door, we are still working on your visit! First, your provider completes what we call an “office encounter”  by adding all their notes and documentation to your child’s chart. Once these notes are complete, you can see a visit summary in your patient portal account — usually by the end of the day, but it may take up to 2-3 days for the notes to appear.

Next, the office notes are reviewed by our posters — the Coastal Kids staff members who attach charges to bills and ensure they are correct — before our billers submit them to your insurance company.

Once the bill has been submitted, our billers follow the charges and update your account after payment is received. We likely will not know until then if there are certain charges or parts of your bill that your insurance plan did not cover. If you have a balance due, our billers will automatically charge your account (if you’ve signed up for AutoPay) or prepare and send you a bill.

There’s an important group of people you may not encounter in the office but speak to frequently on the phone — our fantastic clinical advice team. This group is comprised of MAs, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses who work together to answer all questions and concerns about your child’s health. They can answer many of these questions themselves, but may consult with a provider to get you the best possible care advice.

All members of our Clinical Advice Team have medical training. Like our providers, they can help arrange telehealth video sick visits by connecting you with your child’s office directly or refer you to the emergency room if necessary. Any care advice they discuss with you is added to your child’s electronic medical record and reviewed by a provider. These records allow us to access your child’s information and provide the same expert care at all 20+ Coastal Kids offices or over the phone.

Our phone lines are open after hours — so even if our offices are closed, you can still reach a member of our care team. All you have to do is call, follow the prompts, and our on-call team or answering service will be ready to assist you.