What to Expect at Your Pediatrics Visit

If you are having a medical emergency, call 911 or go to the hospital immediately. 

Sansum Clinic Pediatrics at 51 Hitchcock Way in Santa Barbara is open Monday through Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm. We are closed for lunch 12:00pm-1:00pm daily. 

• If you need to speak with a nurse or have an urgent issue, please call our office at (805) 563-6211.

• If you require assistance after hours, you can speak to an RN who can assess symptoms and determine your best care option over the phone (805) 566-5000.The RN can answer questions, evaluate whether your child should be seen at Urgent Care or the emergency room, and reach our on-call provider if necessary.

• If you are in need of urgent care and cannot wait for a call to be returned, go to Sansum Clinic's Urgent Care located at 215 Pesetas Lane. Walk up appointments are available from 8:00 am - 7:00 pm.

• If you have a non-urgent question or are requesting a future, non-urgent appointment, please send us a MyChart message. We respond to MyChart messages within 48 hours.

• Patients receive texts to confirm their scheduled visits. We greatly appreciate your response to these reminders, as they are our preferred way for patients to confirm, reschedule or cancel appointments.

Below are some tips for contacting our healthcare providers, during our regular operating hours:

• Try using our call-back option when contacting us by phone. This may sometimes result in a faster response than waiting on hold. 

• Mondays and Fridays are our busiest call days.  If your request is not urgent, try calling us Tuesday through Thursday.

• Only use MyChart messaging for non-urgent requests. Typical response time for MyChart messages is 48 hours. 

• If you request an appointment within MyChart, the message gets sent to our triage nurse, who schedules appointments based upon the severity of illness. Please know that when we respond to you on MyChart with a specific appointment day and time, you will have two hours to confirm. After that, the appointment time will be offered to another patient.   

• Same-day appointments at Sansum Clinic’s Urgent Care at 215 Pesetas Lane can be scheduled in MyChart.  Our Urgent Care board-certified physicians and advanced practice providers treat children 7 days a week (with the exception of infants under 6 weeks of age.)

At your child’s appointment, we look forward to ensuring that your child’s needs are addressed thoroughly and thoughtfully. Given time constraints, this means that we are generally able to either address “well child” concerns (such as growth, nutrition, educational progress, safety and vaccination) or “problems” (such as follow-up care for chronic conditions, significant behavioral concerns, or new conditions). Please share your goals for your visit when you speak with our schedulers to ensure the proper visit type is scheduled. We recommend when you check out at the end of your child’s appointment, that you schedule any follow-up visits, or your next annual Well Child Check. 

Please be aware that if a patient is seen for both a Well Child Check and management of another significant problem (new or chronic), insurance contracts require that we charge for all services provided. This may result in an additional co-pay or charges as determined by your insurance company.

Cancellations may be requested prior to 24 hours before your scheduled appointment. We greatly appreciate you letting us know if you can’t attend, so we can free up the visit for another patient. If a patient is a no-show for the Pediatrics appointment or if the appointment is canceled less than 24 hours before their scheduled time, the patient may be responsible for a $30 cancellation fee. Exceptions to the cancellation fee include emergencies and other unavoidable circumstances.

Excessive cancellation and/or no show of scheduled appointments may result in discharge from the practice.

Patients who are late may be asked to reschedule, may wind up having an abbreviated visit, or may have to wait for the provider. Patients who are late should expect to wait. We will accommodate them as quickly as possible.

Medication refills should be directed to your pharmacy of choice. Routinely, refills for chronic conditions require office visits every 3-12 months (3 months for ADHD medications and asthma, 6-12 months for other well-controlled chronic medical conditions.) For controlled medications (for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, etc.) patients should call the office for a prescription at least 5 business days prior to the medication being needed.

**Please note: Our pediatricians will not prescribe antibiotics or fill requests for new medications without a proper visit to address the issue the prescription is being requested for.

Sansum Clinic pediatricians can only complete forms on children who have had a Well Child Exam within the last 12 months.

All forms should be completed with demographic information to the best of the family’s ability to help reduce errors and misinformation. Front office staff can not accept forms when this basic information is left incomplete.

Click here to complete the authorization for third party consent for treatment of a minor >

Patients may not be seen without a parent or guardian present to give consent unless:

• they are adolescents seeking care for sexual health or mental health problems (California state law grants adolescents the ability to consent for these issues.) 

• they are accompanied by another adult who has written permission from a parent or guardian. Parents and guardians may also provide ongoing consent for named family members and friends to bring children and adolescents to the office. Without the proper documentation, appointments, including routine shots, will need to be rescheduled.

Vaccine Schedule Birth to 6 Years

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/child-easyread.html 

Vaccine Schedule 7-18 Years

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/adolescent-easyread.html 

Our Policy

The health of each and every one of our patients is important to us. We also respect the beliefs and perspectives of all of our families. 

We care for many children, some with few or no medical problems and others with significant medical needs.

Some of our patients and/or their family members have immune systems that do not function as well as others, and we need to take extra precautions to provide for their safety. These patients may include newborn babies, children with diabetes, asthma, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, organ transplants and some who receive chemotherapy or other medications that may suppress their immune systems.

In order to protect our patients and community from vaccine preventable diseases, it is our expectation that each of our patients receive appropriate immunizations based on the schedule published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We encourage you to talk to your pediatric provider if you have any questions.

For any questions about your bill for services, please contact the Patient Business Services Department. Pediatrics Department staff are unable to answer questions about your bill. 

Sansum Clinic's MyChart gives patients, parents and caregivers secure on-line access to their medical records. You can securely manage and receive information about your child’s health. You can request appointments, view your child’s after-visit summaries, view test results, request prescription renewals, and communicate electronically with your pediatric provider. 

Login to MyChart: https://mychart.sansumclinic.org/MyChart/Authentication/Login?

Register for MyChart: https://mychart.sansumclinic.org/MyChart/signup

MyChart for Teens - Age 12-17: https://www.sansumclinic.org/mychart-for-teens

Our online Symptom Checker is a self-assessment tool to help you decide when to call your doctor if your child is not feeling well or has a minor injury. The tool provides tips for relieving minor symptoms, dosage tables for common medications, first aid instructions, and pediatrician-recommended advice for parenting situations. 

To learn more, visit the Children's Symptom Checker web page