COVID-19 Patient Instructions

Schoonover Eye Care is prepared for your visit!

What we ask of you:              

There are a lot of new safety precautions and a few things we need to ask of you, so please read all the way through prior to your appointment, call us beforehand if you have questions or concerns. In times like this, we must adhere to policies to keep all our risks low.

2 – 3 Days Before Your Visit:

• Please ensure that you have provided us with your vision and medical insurance. We need a copy of the front and back of all insurance cards. You may call us with this information, but it is best to e-mail or fax us with a photo of your cards. (Our email is emailus.sec@gmail.com and our fax is 570-489-8702).
• As a courtesy, we attempt to verify insurance benefits ahead of time. If we don’t have the information to be able to do that you will be asked to pay at the time of your service. We can still seek payment from your insurance and reimburse you but it is more efficient to get us your data ahead of time. Half our staff will be on duty each day, so we do not have the capacity to check insurances on the day of your visit.
• Print and fill out the patient forms, agreement and HIPAA.  Then, if possible, send back to us via email at emailus.sec@gmail.com.
• All areas of the office will be tightly scheduled. We have 1 staff with each patient in our optical showroom at any given time. If more patients need assistance than planned for we will ask the next patient to sit (not browse), stay greater than 6 feet from where the first patient is being assisted or we may ask the next person to wait in their car and re-enter when we are ready.

The Day of Your Visit:

Stay at home if you are ill or have reason to believe you have recent exposure that may put others at risk. Call to alert us and reschedule.

The following screening questions will be asked of you before you enter our office. If you have had any of the symptoms in the past two weeks please stay home and call us to reschedule:

• Fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, muscle pain, sore throat, headache, loss of smell or taste, exposure to someone who has presumed or confirmed COVID-19.
• We will be measuring your temperature at the entrance to our office. Any measure at or above 100 degrees F will be repeated and rescheduled if necessary. If you have a thermometer, please take your temperature before leaving home. Measuring at home could save you a trip to the office.
• Please come into your visit alone. Minors may bring 1 parent or legal guardian and those who require assistance may bring 1 caregiver in with them. Our exam rooms are too small to accommodate more than one person in this time of social distancing. Please bring in with you as few items as possible, leave your coat and water bottle in the car.
• Please wear a mask (a medical or cloth face covering). If you do not have one, we will provide one upon entry. Our supply is limited, so if you do have one we appreciate you wearing it in. During this time our doctors strongly recommend that all patients who need a retinal health evaluation such as diabetes, macular degeneration, or glaucoma have OCT Retinal Imaging in place of dilation. This does add a $39 cost to your visit but may save you the dilation procedure (the doctor may specify imaging, dilation, or both for certain situations). (Please plan to pay with a credit card.)

Upon Arrival:

Stay in your car and call or reply to any prior text message we sent you to let us know you have arrived.

Our door is locked. A phone call will alert us to your arrival and help us look for any missing details to expedite your time in office. When the office is cleaned and we are ready for you, we will meet you in the entry way to do a screening in the glass entry way prior to you entering the office.

If you do not have a face mask, we will give you a new, sterile one. You will be expected to wear the mask for the entirety of your visit and ensure that it is fit snuggly above the nose and below the mouth. If you feel you are having difficulty breathing during your visit please let us know. Removal of your mask is against the health protocols at this time, our staff will be wearing one, and we do expect you to keep yours on as well. Wearing a mask within our office is required at this time. If you have a medical concern that interferes with wearing a mask, call us a few days before your visit so that your doctor may review your needs and decide if we can keep the visit with other accommodations or if rescheduling is best.

Upon entry, your hands will be sprayed with Pure & Clean. This is a disinfectant shown to be effective against RNA viruses. We updated to Pure & Clean as our in office surface cleaner and hand spray and continue to select it as the best possible disinfection method. There is traditional soap in our restroom and exam rooms. If you have touched something simply ask any of our staff who will spray your hands any time throughout your visit, to keep you from needing to touch the bottles.

If your temperature is 100 degrees F or above on two readings you will be asked to reschedule your visit.

We will be diligently wiping down rooms between patient encounters, as well as all our public areas. However, it is best for you to touch as few things as possible during your time in the office. Please refrain from touching anything including your face. We will happily open doors for you, hand you any item we need you to hold, or touch, and we will clean it afterward.

When you visit our optical showroom we will select frames with you from our frame boards. We have over 700 eyeglasses in stock and will find the perfect ones for you to try on. As each item needs to be disinfected after being handled, we need your help tracking anything that was touched. Your frames with be in tray for you to try on exclusively.

Please maintain safe social distancing, which means keeping a distance of at least 6 feet or more between any 2 people. If your visit runs long, and you have a number of questions or we feel there are lengthy discussions, we would like to have but prolonged exposure time raises risk, we may ask to conclude discussions by phone after you have left the office. This may be related to doctor education and explanations, treatment options, medical instructions or discussions about eyeglasses feature and benefits. Please understand if we advise this it is to provide you the most thorough information without time pressures. Instructions, questions, or optical choices or payment may be concluded safely by phone or video conference after the fact as well. Our goal is efficient, thorough eye care with minimized risks for you and for us.

After Your Appointment:

Please help by keeping in touch via email or text with any questions you have. If items were not finished, we will contact you to conclude discussions and be sure all your questions are answered. Your patience is appreciated as we cannot be sure where bottlenecks or time pressures will arise. We promise to keep perfecting our systems in this unprecedented time.

Alert us immediately if you were at Schoonover Eye Care for a visit and discover a fever or symptoms afterward. We have established protocols for these situations but the sooner we know exposure may have occurred the better we may handle this.