Office Set Up/Patient Safety
We continue to work hard to have a safe environment for you when you come in for your visit.
We have designated our Salem, Reading and Melrose offices as Well Child offices, for patients to keep up with their Well Child Visits, and for acute care of patients who do not have fever or respiratory symptoms.
We have divided our Peabody office to provide both Well Care and Acute Sick Care in distinct, separate areas of the office with separate entrances. Please use the main entrance for Acute Care, and our side entrance (around the left side of the building as you face it) for Well Care visits.
Our Lynn office will be seeing Well Care patients in the morning, and Acute Sick Care patients from the mid-afternoon on.
We encourage you to continue to be seen for your well visits, especially for infants in need of their routine immunizations and developmental check-ups. Appointments for acute visits will be screened by our staff and scheduled in the appropriate location. All visitors to each office location will be screened prior to entering the office.
To protect our patients who have yet to be eligible to be immunized for the COVID-19 vaccine, we prefer that whenever possible, only 1 parent or guardian accompany the scheduled patient to their visit. We are happy to welcome other family members to attend visits when they are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
COVID-19 Vaccine Information
PHCA is offering the COVID-19 vaccine at ALL of our office locations to eligible patients, patients’ families and friends 5 years and older. The vaccine may be administered at any office visit, and can be safely co-administered with other routine immunizations, including the influenza vaccine. The clinicians at PHCA encourage all eligible patients to receive the vaccine in order get the best protection against COVID-19. Appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine can easily be scheduled through the MyChart Patient Portal.
For additional information regarding the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine, we highly recommend the COVID vaccination education page published by Boston Children’s Hospital.
Rapid COVID Testing
PHCA is now offering on-site rapid testing for COVID-19. The rapid COVID-19 PCR test is currently available only for symptomatic patients who are being evaluated in the office, or have had a virtual visit with a PHCA provider. We continue to offer send out testing for patients without symptoms who require surveillance testing.
Rapid COVID-19 testing is subject to the availability of testing supplies from the manufacturer. Our staff will let you know if this testing is available at the time of your visit.
Virtual Visits
We are utilizing online Virtual Visits for care for families who cannot come to the office or prefer to be evaluated remotely when this is clinically appropriate.
As noted above, an active MyChart Patient Portal account is required for an online virtual visit. To help facilitate HIPAA compliant communications between PHCA and our patients, we strongly recommend that every family at PHCA have an active MyChart account. For assistance in activating a MyChart Account please call our office at 978-535-1110, option 8.