FAQ

We try to accommodate same day appointments for sick patients based on your child’s condition.  Please call our office as soon as you realize that your child is not feeling well, so that we can bring them in as early as possible for evaluation. However, for well visits, sports physicals, and new patient visits, you need to call and schedule your appointments in advance. 

For us to provide comprehensive care, we prefer treating your child for all illnesses. We encourage you to contact us through after hour phone number and determine whether your child needs to be seen at Urgent Care clinics. Usually, these clinics are not staffed with pediatric trained physicians or nurse practitioners. Therefore, you may not receive proper treatment for your child. We are open late on some days and one of our providers is always on call after the office is closed. However, we request you to use after hours services for URGENT matters that cannot wait for regular business hours. If you feel that your child is in an emergency situation, please call 911.

All of our pediatricians have staff privileges at Atlanticare Medical Center, Pomona, NJ, and Shore Medical Center, Somers Point, NJ.  

Our office has separate waiting areas for sick and well patients. We feel that the newborn babies are particularly vulnerable to prevailing sickness and we created a separate newborn waiting area.  

We have good contacts with several specialists in the area and we will discuss with you about all the options available before referring your child to a specialists. If your child needs immediate attention, our office will contact the specialist’s office for an expedited appointment.

Yes. This is a requirement of all insurance companies.  

The policy of our office is that all co-payments are due at the time of service.  For your convenience, we accept cash, checks, and all major credit cards.

We accept self-paying patients or patients who do not have active insurance.  However, the payment for the expected services is required at the time of service.  We will gladly provide you with a receipt that can be used to submit a claim for reimbursement.

We encourage and accommodate to bring children into our office for all of their recommended well visits without delay.  We will always encourage you to schedule your child’s next appointment prior to leaving at each visit.  If your child generally obtains his physical in the summer, we ask that you plan ahead and schedule this appointment  well in advance.

We provide three different types of services, well visit, sick visit, and consultation.  A well visit is a thorough visit where we monitor the development and provide preventative care for your child.  This includes monitoring of growth and development, vision screening, hearing screening, sports physicals, and parent counseling on relevant topics including healthy diet, behavior, academics, anticipatory guidance, and safety precautions. A sick visit is primarily to asses and treat the illness. A consultation can be a second opinion you planning seek,  a prenatal consultation, or a lactation consultation.

You should contact your insurance carrier and become familiar with your insurance policy that provides coverage for your children. Many companies will not cover same day sick visits during the course of a well exam. Other carriers will provide coverage for any problems identified and treated during the well exam.

Yes. The practitioners at Tender Care Pediatrics require the routine childhood vaccine schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Scientific evidence has established that childhood vaccines are safe and protect children from serious illness. Children who do not receive immunizations are susceptible to potentially life-threatening illnesses and present a risk to the other children they come into contact with and the community at large. The potential consequences of vaccine preventable diseases include hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, seizures, brain damage, and even death. We strongly encourage you to visit this link for more information.

In pediatrics, we have seen the tremendous benefits of childhood vaccinations. At the same time, we have seen how misinformation about vaccines has put children at risk for illness. We understand the difficulty parents may have in sorting through the vast quantities of data on vaccine safety, and we are here to help guide you and answer all of your vaccine related questions.

At each visit we will review your child’s health record and discuss with you any vaccines that are recommended. Your child’s vaccine record is kept in your child’s chart as well as in our computer database, which allows us to print out each child’s vaccine record for school and camp forms. We participate in Vaccines for Children (VFC) program and utilize the New Jersey Immunization Information System to maintain vaccine records for all immunizations, whether covered by VFC and or private insurance.

We strongly encourage you that you cancel appointments at least 24 hours in advance so that other children in need of an appointment can use the time your child no longer needs. We understand that unforeseen problems occur. However,  when a family consistently fails to cancel their appointments in a timely manner, we may charge a fee.

Yes. We take credit card payment by phone during business hours. Please call our office and ask for the billing department. The billing department is always available to answer any of your insurance and payment questions as well.

Yes. Choosing a pediatric practice for your child is one of your most important decisions to be made before delivery.  We welcome you to make an prenatal consultation appointment to meet our staff, visit our offices, and spend time asking us questions about your upcoming delivery and care for your newborn.