FAQs

Appointments can be made for all offices by calling the main scheduling line at (858) 966-4900.

We asked patients to please give 24 hours notice when cancelling appointments.

If your appointment is scheduled for a Monday, we still ask that you call our office over the weekend and leave a message if you are unable to keep this appointment. We will return your call the next business day.

Although patients can be seen by self-referral, many health plans require prior authorization from your primary care physician. We must have a copy of this prior authorization before making your appointment. If possible, please forward or bring with you any previous records and reports. In addition, bring a written list of all current medications, or bring your bottles of medications.

At the initial consultation, a detailed history of the patient’s problem, including duration, severity, medications, family history, and environmental and dietary factors will be obtained. A physical examination will be performed with special emphasis on systems affected by the symptoms. A decision will then be made as to whether further assessments, including skin tests, x-rays, or lung function tests should be performed. Please visit our New Patient Registration page for further details.

• Patients are seen by appointment
• If you feel that your problem is urgent, please call our office and we will accommodate you as soon as possible.
• Urgent appointments sometimes necessitate that you see the first available healthcare provider rather than your regular doctor. Fortunately, the healthcare providers in our practice have access to your chart and have similar approaches to treating patients.

The San Diego office is open on Saturdays from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon. These weekend hours are used for allergy injections and for office visits, so please call if you need an appointment. We don’t have walk-in hours.

If you have a medical problem or a question between appointments, please call us. State the reason for the call to the receptionist. She will assist you or refer your phone call to the appropriate person. Your doctor or nurse will return your call. The physicians’ return calls are often made at the lunch hour, at the end of the working day, or the next day if not urgent. Although some issues can be handled over the telephone, it is not our policy to routinely treat patients over the phone.

Please note that the nursing staff and physicians will return your calls as soon as they are available, please realize they are busy seeing patients in the clinic. Sometimes this means that a call that has come in the morning, may not be answered until the afternoon, or the next day if not urgent, depending on patient care in the office.

• We do not prescribe new medications or antibiotics without a patient visit.
• During regular office hours, routine medication may be refilled over the phone if you remain under our active care. Patients are required to be seen each year to keep current with their medication. It is especially important if you are using asthma or other rescue medications, that you keep your routine appointments.
• We request that you call your pharmacy for medication refills first. There are many times where the pharmacies may have refills available, that don’t require additional approval from our office. If the refills have been used, the pharmacy will contact our office.
• If you are using a new pharmacy or are requesting that we contact your pharmacy initially, please have available the area code and phone number of your pharmacy, and the name and strength of any medication you may need to have refilled.
• Routine prescriptions will not be filled at night or on the weekends. Please make sure to keep track of your medication usage, so you don’t run out of your prescriptions. These should be called in during office hours.
• We have a 24 hour turnaround time on all prescriptions.

• A doctor from the practice is available for questions, problems or urgent matters 24 hours a day.
• You may be asked to come to the office to be seen that day during office hours, or the next day.
• If you have a medical emergency, go directly to an emergency room. The hospital will give emergency care and contact one of our clinic doctors if necessary.