Hello all,
I spoke to Dr Afrin's nurse, Holly today, and she gave me permisison to share the following:  

1)  Dr Afrin is requesting that current patients stop EMAILING him, and use the communication tool in MYCHART or call them to communicate with Dr Afrin or nurse.  This request is to ensure patient safety, as both are logged into your medical record.  Dr Afrin sees well over 300 mast cell patients and then also sees cancer and hematology patients, and he is concerned that some emails may not get answered in a timely fashion or get buried in his email inbox.  Also, emails often contain details regarding symptoms/anaphylaxis and since there is no way for the emails sent to his work email address to be entered into your medical record, for your own safety, use MYCHART or call to communicate with them.    

2)  Holly assures me she is NOT leaving Dr Afrin.  MUSC is currently making arrangements for certain patient populations to be seen at either their Mount Pleasant or North Charleston locations.  Since Holly splits her time between two different clinics on site and already works in a different clinic one day a week, there is a scheduling conflict and she is unable to follow Dr Afrin to the offsite location that day of the week.  A new nurse will be assigned to him, but she will still be be around and working in that clinic.  Existing patients will be notified if upcoming appointments are scheduled at either location.  

Lyn

FYI -
I spoke with Trista today.  She is Dr. Afrin's new nurse and it sounds like she will be taking over all of the things Holli was handling.  (I think Holli is still at MUSC, she just won't be supporting Dr. Afrin.)

I specifically asked her how best to communicate with her and she said, just as Holli did, that calling and leaving a message is best.  I asked her about using the MyChart system and she said that you could use it, but that unfortunately the messages aren't directed specifically to them and just go to a general message group, so it may take time for the messages to get to them, or they may not get them at all.  Sounds like a poorly designed system.

Anyway, I recommend you NOT use the MyChart system for communications for the time being, and instead call and leave a message for Trista.  (I had left a message for Holli, so apparently she forwarded it to Trista just fine.)

Don´t forget the old addage "good help is hard to find" !   It´s not unusual for these kinds of difficulties with business when they change locations.  I´ve seen it in plenty of places, doctors offices are not immune to these things.   I am sure that it is no reflection upon Dr. Afrin himself for he seems to be a rather fastidious kind of doctor.  Besides, there are plenty of doctors offices which this is not an unfamiliar situation and often has nothing do to with the doctor himself.   Remember, your doctor trained for med school, not business school and often this is a serious frustration to doctors be they involved in a large clinic situation or a small single doctor practice.  There is a great deal of paperwork and administrative responsibility in running a medical practice and dealing with patients and their lab tests are just one angle of it.  If you´ve never taken the time to take a look at what goes on within a doctor´s office, try talking with the secretary or receptionist or other worker within the office the next time you are there.   A great many doctors have to get themselves involved in the nit picky administrative details after hours in order to keep their business afloat, something which I´m certain that they would much rather prefer leaving up to someone else if they could!

So, although you may go through issues with the doctor´s office itself, please realize that a Good doctor is really hard to find and sometimes really worth being patient with when it comes to dealing with the office issues.


I hope this helps.

Lisa

ps - you should ALWAYS make sure you get your own copies of all of your lab work and scans.  These are yours and you have a right to keep them.