May 11, 2020

To Our Patients,

We are reopening our office to address your medical needs and to resume your routine and preventative healthcare, as they are essential to maintaining good health. We have spent many hours researching and rethinking the ways in which we practice and have decided to open our office starting Monday, May 18th for COVID-19 antibody testing, routine office visits, annual exams and acute medical issues. Our hours will be adjusted and appointment slots will be limited so we can implement new, evidence-based infection-control protocols in our office.

IN-OFFICE APPOINTMENTS:

• The day before your visit, our staff may call you to re-screen for COVID-19-related symptoms.
• Please come to your appointment by yourself, unless you need assistance.
• We ask that you wear a mask to your visit.
• We are not seeing patients who have Covid-19-related symptoms or recent known exposure to the virus.

OFFICE HOURS (By appointment only):

Dr. Abrams and Dr. Klapowitz currently have weekday, evening, and Saturday hours. Please call us for further details.

AT OUR OFFICE:

• Your temperature will be checked upon entry.
• We ask that you do not adjust or remove your mask until instructed to do so by our staff or doctors.
• Please continue social distancing.
• If you need to use our restroom, please try to do so before you are escorted to an examination room.
• In order to minimize contact with pens and clipboards, we may ask you to fill out forms and send updated insurance information through our email.

VIRTUAL APPOINTMENTS:

We will continue to be available for telehealth visits and consultations. These types of appointments are great for those of you who are out-of-town, need medication refills that do not require in-person monitoring, or are experiencing symptoms related to COVID-19.

WE PERFORM TESTING FOR COVID-19 ANTIBODIES IF:

• Your COVID-19 symptoms began more than three weeks before your intended visit date and you answer “no” to our screening questions. Testing earlier yields inaccurate results.
• You never had symptoms and you answer “no” to our screening questions.

We send our tests exclusively to major laboratories that only use equipment with EUA (Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA). Many tests out there, especially ones that provide results in minutes or hours, are not very accurate and may give you a false negative or positive result. PLEASE REMEMBER: The presence of antibodies does NOT mean you are immune to (protected against) COVID-19. Further research is pending.

We look forward to seeing you and continuing our partnership in your healthcare!

–Dr. Robert Abrams, Dr. Julian Klapowitz, and the Avenue Medical Associates staff

For detailed COVID-19 information, go to CDC.gov. For summary information, updated regularly, see Dr. Klapowit’z Travel Medicine Website. For pandemic data for NYC, see NYC.gov COVID-19 Data.