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Announcements are in reverse chronological order.
2005 DECEMBER 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Paintings by Melissa Amernick, abstract artist, will be on display beginning Thursday, December 1, 2005. Everyone is welcome to attend the
opening reception, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm. OCTOBER 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Paintings by David Dobzelecki, abstract artist, will be on display beginning Thursday, October 20, 2005. Everyone is welcome to attend the opening reception, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm.
SEPTEMBER 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Prints by Beth
Green will be on display beginning Thursday, September 22, 2005. Everyone is welcome to attend the opening reception, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm.
MAY 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Paintings by Jovan Villalba will be on display beginning Thursday, May 5, 2005. Everyone is welcome to attend the
opening reception, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm. MARCH 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Prints by Rachele Unter will be on display beginning Thursday, March 31, 2005. Everyone is welcome to attend the opening reception, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm.
FEBRUARY 2005 GALLERY OPENING
Photographs of Andrea Kells.
Opening Reception Thursday, February 3, 2005 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM. All are Welcome 2004
NOVEMBER 2004 GALLERY OPENING
"Circles & Crosses" - Found Object Sculpture & Mixed Media Paintings by Liz Curtin. Opening
Reception Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome. NOVEMBER 2004 GALLERY OPENING
Oil Paintings by Salvador Tatulli. Opening Reception Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome. WELCOME TO NEW STAFF
Welcome to Christine Kakoulas, M.D., Caryn J. Theiner, D.O., and
Teresa S. Tang, M.D. JUNE 2004 GALLERY OPENING
"A Feast of Color and Light" - photographs of Lucia Phipps. Opening Reception Thrusday, June 24, 2004 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome.
MAY 2004 GALLERY OPENING
"Shades of Autumn" - photographs by Deanna Amoroso.
Opening Reception Thursday, May 13, 2004 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome.
APRIL 2004 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of paintings, drawings, and photographs of
Janet Restino will open Thursday, April 1, 2004 (no kidding!) from 7:30 - 9 PM. All are welcome.
2003
DECEMBER 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of
photographs of William Bernthal will open on December 18th from 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome.
NOVEMBER 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of paintings of Lois Fisher will open on November 20th from 7:30-9:00 PM. All are welcome.
OCTOBER 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of photographic works of Martin Cooper will open on October
2 from 7-9 PM. All are welcome.
SEPTEMBER 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of collage works of Veronica Ferré (originally scheduled simultaneously with the Great NYC Blackout of 2003 - August 14) has been rescheduled for September 18 from 7-9 PM. All are welcome.
WELCOME TO NEW STAFF
Welcome to Jonathan Fisher, MD, brother
of Ed Fisher, MD. Dr. Jonathan Fisher is perfoming cardiac echos in the office, one day per week.
NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS AVAILABLE
We are now carrying a full line of high-end nutritional supplements including fish oil, calcium, fiber,
multivitamins, and many other Metagenics products. We are linking the website directly to the Metagencis website so that you will be able to order refills directly through the website that Metagenics will process and
deliver.
AUGUST 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of
works of Veronica Ferre will open on August 14 from 7-9 PM. All are welcome.
WELCOME TO NEW STAFF
Welcome to new associate Vincente Pedre, MD, board-certified internist by way of the Mount Sinai NYC Medical Center. Welcome to new associate Gene Balboa, Internist trained at the Yale Medical Center, with a background in having worked in the medical insurance industry.
Welcome to Pat Camillo RN-C, Ph.D. Pat is currently Director of the Women's Health Graduate Program at Seton Hall University in South
Orange, New Jersey. She has been a nurse since 1974. In subsequent years, she finished her bachelors, master and doctoral degrees and received
certification as a women's health and gerontology nurse practitioner. She has worked in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and private homes. You can read more about her here. We are very excited in having Pat join Yafferuden in implementing our Women's Health and Menopause Center!
GOOD LUCK...
... to Amy Chinigo, MD, off to New
Jersey to a new home and a new practice. We wish her good luck in her recovery from spinal fusion surgery. ... to Ronda Bloom, MD
as she starts a 2 year endocrinology fellowship at NYU. We hope to have her back part-time in the near future, and fulltime as an endocrinologist.... to Claire Grigaux, MD, as she joins her
fiancé in California. We hope to have her back in a year.
JUNE 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The pastel drawings of Dr. Scott Weiss will open on June 19th. Dr. Weiss is a member of our staff. The
pictures were drawn mostly during his years at medical school.
WELCOME TO NEW STAFF
Welcome to new associate Joanna Ku, board certified internist, by way of a Harvard Internal Medicine program.Welcome to new associate David Clayton MD
, board certified internist, who is also finishing his MBA degree at Columbia this summer. CONGRATULATIONS...
... to Ronda Bloom on the birth of baby Matthew, 4/11/2003!
APRIL 2003 GALLERY OPENING
The showing of Thomas Vinson's photographs "I Take Manhattan" will open on April 24 from 7-9 PM. All are
welcome. 2002
WINTERIZED FOUNTAINS
Note the winterized fountains. Because of the water
shortage, we were not able to use our fountains this summer. Using the engineering expertise of Ben Yaffe, we are proud to have one of the few winterized fountains in NYC. With the windows open, the white
noise helps to set a relaxing mood in the office, blotting out background noise and helping the 'feng-shui'.
UPCOMING GALLERY EXIBITION
Note the upcoming Dalton Art Teachers Gallery Exhibition on February 12, 2003, at 7:30 PM. All are welcome.
DR. CHINIGO RETURNS
Amy Chinigo MD
has returned part-time after spinal fusion surgery, and will gradually return to full-time in the near future! Dr. Chinigo will also spearhead the 65th Street Bone Density Center.
65TH STREET BONE DENSITY CENTER
The 65th Street Bone Density Center
will reach out to the community to offer bone density testing to anyone who warrants it! By calling 212-350-1515, you can hear about the project, and register yourself, a loved one, a friend, or a neighbor
in need of this painless and inexpensive exam. Ask about our new "You are Invited" postcard bone density invites!
DR. WEISS IS ONBOARD
The staff continues to grow- We welcome Scott Weiss, M.D. as the newest M.D. addition to
Yafferuden. Dr. Weiss is a board-certified Internist via LIJ Hospital.
DR. BLOOM EATING FOR TWO
Dr. Ronda Bloom expects to miss 6 weeks from mid-March to May, concurrent with a planned 30 pound weight loss, and an attempt to regain the illusion of height
. Good luck to the mom-to-be!
HIPPA & PATIENT RIGHTS
HIPAA regulations will soon require all patients to sign a statement confirming that the office is adhering to the privacy policies mandated by the government. These
rules go into effect on April 15th, 2003. They in-office privacy officer is Vera Buglione, soon to be Vera Mehta (her maiden name). Any questions should go to Vera at #285. For information
about the regulations and patients privacy rights, go to: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/privacy.html or http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20021100/35theh.html
PHONE RECEPTION
The phones are now working very well
. We are very proud of our receptionists who hopefully are very consistent in answering, listening, scheduling and sympathetically helping our patients. Vera coordinates the receptionists and their training,
and welcomes complaints and compliments. If anyone fails to get appropriate callbacks or responses, please contact your doctor via email, or call Vera, ext. 285, or hit the frustration button
on the website so that we know where the responsibility falls! Always make sure the person who takes your call identifies herself!
24 YEARS OF TALKING
Dr. Yaffe begins the 24th
year of his political/cultural/economic discussion evenings, held monthly, usually on the first Monday of the month at 8 PM.. If interested in actively participating, please let Dr. Yaffe know via email on
this website.
ANNUAL GOLF WEEKENDS
Dr. Yaffe's 2003 annual golf weekends are on Feb 7th, Mar 7th, and April 10th
to PGA National, Worldwoods, and Kiawah. 8 guys, handicap 5-20, 5 rounds in 3 days. Next sign-up Dec. 1, 2003.
ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS
We are very excited about the use of patient entered data forms which we will start using on October 1st. 1. Many people are concerned about the privacy aspect of filling out medical information on the internet. The forms are on a secure website, and it meets the standards that the federal
HIPAA requirements set for protecting patients' privacy. The information you submit will be seen only by the medical personnel in the office, in a much more private way than paper charts
can be viewed. Only medical personnel with special access can see any medical information in the electronic medical record.
2. There will be someone to help you fill these things out, and even if you are computer illiterate we will still allow you to be a HAPPY PATIENT!3. The information that you enter does not need to be spelled correctly, does not need to be edited correctly, and is not the final information that you will have in your chart. This replaces the idea
of filling out a checklist in the office, and it gives you an opportunity to really remember what your issues are, what your history has been, what medicines you are on, and what tests you have had. Guys
have the additional opportunity of having their wives/mothers/girlfriends help them!! 4. Since this can be done several weeks in advance
it has the potential to be done well! Ask parents for family history. Look up 24 hour pharmacy phone and FAX numbers, for day, night and even at the beach house. 5. You can write as much
or as little as you want. No one is grading your content. Some people have virtually nothing to write, because there is no medical history. Others are just lazy. 6. Just remember, you are
paying your insurance company (though not necessarily us) a lot of money, and the better a data base you provide, the more chance we will hear you correctly, and the more likely we will get it right!
7. Patients say doctors don't listen. Well, we say 'complain', write about it, embellish it to your heart's content! Write chapters if you want to explain just how you feel and why.
8. Some guidelines—if you are going to tell a detailed history about a problem-- organize your thoughts in chronological order. Try to detail what you have done about it already.
Any relevant labs (bring them if you have them and we can scan them in!). Any thoughts on what you have tried to make the problem better, what makes it worse, what symptoms exactly do you have (
keep a diary if you want for headaches, pains, etc.). Any medications you have tried? Over-the-counter? What do you think it is? What are you worried about? 9. Realize that once
you enter this information, you can always change it up to the time of the visit, when we will extract relevant medical information, and enter it onto our secure servers. Then it disappears!
10. If you feel that writing about something might be embarrassing, even though only your doctors or PA will see it, don't write it!! Save it for the interview. We can always talk about
it, just don't forget about it! 11. Imagine always being able to find all the information we are looking for? 12. Realize that we may spend 30 minutes in a physical, and 15 minutes of that may
be information gathering and data entering (note-scribbling). It is hard to listen and write! It is hard to read what we write, especially if we write fast, or a lot. There are only 15 minutes left to
examine, think about issues, explain things, and allow for questions. Thus YOU and WE may feel rushed. If you do this well, and you only have to do this once in your whole life, you will have a good complete
history, and we will have more time to examine, think, explain, and organize! 13. Once you have filled out the complete physical form, 'the big guy', then for future physicals, you just need to fill
out the physical update form. What has happened since the last physical? New medical problems, new surgeries, new meds, new changes in family history, etc. Hopefully not much. Realize that
if we send you to another doctor, or if you move, or if you are traveling, we can print out, fax, or email a complete, readable, updated record, with lab downloads, etc.
14. When you come in for subsequent visits, you can fill out tiny little forms, depending on your complaint (back spasm, urinary infection, cough, etc), and you can do that at home, or on your palm, or in the
waiting room- will will have at least five access sites in the office. 15. Lastly, if you really want to be cool, bring your laptop with a wireless networking card and you can
WI-FI in through our firewall in the waiting room. JUNE 2002 GALLERY OPENING
Everyone is welcome to the Yafferuden gallery opening on Thursday, June 20th for the Paintings of Dan Marshall. The opening runs from 7 to 9 p.m.
PULLING THE GOALIE
A woman who is going off of the pill, who is
trying to start a family, etc., will come in and say that "they are starting to try." A much more descriptive term has been coined of late to describe such a woman -- "she has pulled the goalie." We
are attempting to be the 'tipping point' in universalizing this wonderfully appropriate phrase, hence the office announcement. Pass it on! APRIL 2002 GALLERY OPENING
The Suzan Roth (front desk lady!) Gallery
opening will occur on Saturday, April 13th, from 2-4 pm. It will feature a series of prints, and refreshments will be served. All are invited! NEW DIGITAL PHONES
YaffeRuden has invested in a new digital phone system, and will be
switching from the now -defunct Teligent, to a T-1 line from Time-Warner Telecom. The new phone system will hopefully eliminate long on-hold times, by totally restructuring the call distributions. It is
hoped that by being able to monitor the number of calls per hour and per day, their relative distribution, and the capacity to monitor the efficiency and the style of each phone answerer, we will be able to improve the
phone service in the office. We were startled too learn that we were getting up to 1500 calls per day in the office over our 12 hour day! Vera and Dr. Yaffe will make it a top priority to have
"top-of-the-line" phone service by the Spring. At that time we will begin to institute The Medscape Logician Electronic Medical Record, which will integrate the labs, the phones, the website, the
check-in, billing, and the referral system. By Labor Day, 2002 we hope to be the most technically organized private medical office around. We apologize for any inconvenience during the transition months, and we
wish ourselves luck! FEBRUARY 2002 GALLERY OPENING
Wednesday February 13th, 2002 will be the next opening night at the galleries at Yafferuden. The show will feature the Art Department of Dalton School.. Six artists representing
several different media will be represented in this three gallery show. To be on the email list, sign up in the office or email Dr. Yaffe.
2001 and earlier ADDITIONAL DERMATOLOGIST
Dorian Gravenese, MD., dermatologist, is now in the office on Fridays until 1:30, supplementing Dr. Bruder's dermatology schedule on Tuesdays. WELCOME PAs
Welcome to Danielle Katz, P. A., and Dana Levine, P.A.,
the newest additions to our professional staff. WELCOME BACK HEATHER
Welcome home to Heather Canning, Ph. D., nurse practitioner, back from a 5 week trip to her native Australia. Australia native Anne Renton, physical therapist, and
Dr. Ruden and his family, will spend the Christmas holidays in Australia!. SEPTEMBER 2001 ART GALLERY OPENING
The next art gallery opening is on September 13th, 2001, Thursday night, and it features famous celebrity caricaturist Richard Osterweil. Please feel free to attend this
open house after office hours from 7 to 9. Many more to come. Support the artists! Buy some stuff! We have.
SATURDAY 2001 AM HOURS
Starting on Sat. Sept. 22, 2001 we will have Saturday morning office hours from 9 AM until 1 PM. One of the
physicians will be available for office visits, physicals, and possibly bone densities and chest x-rays, physical therapy and dermatology visits. If you are sick in the middle of the night on Friday, you will be seen
the next morning in the office. We will have hours on all Saturdays except holiday weekends, and we will probably continue this through until the beginning of next summer. We do not anticipate having summer Saturdays.
FOUNTAINS & WINDOWS
We are
happy to be able to open the front windows so as to experience the wonderful fountain noise in the waiting room. The calming effect has been noted on both patients and staff alike. We hope the flies do not notice the
opportunity to enter. Think feng sui. OLD OFFICE TO REOPEN
It has been a long-term plan to eventually re-open the 84th Street office of YaffeRuden in the fall of 2002. Dr. Yaffe owns the old office, which is presently being used by a lab,
and intends to reopen it in about a year when the charts have been placed on a secure server, and they can be accessed from both sites. In a year, Dr. Yaffe anticipates that he will spend on or two days per week there,
seeing fee-for-service patients, in a quiet, uninterrupted, old-style environment. Many patients with regular indemnity insurance plans have expressed interest in returning to a quieter time when Dr. Yaffe can schedule
visits and consultations uninterrupted by calls. JENNIFER COLAVITO, OPTOMETRIST
Ms. Colavito is in the office every Thursday between 8 AM and 6 PM. An associate of Jeff Cooper, they have regular offices on Park Ave. in the 60s. Jennifer is available
for all types of eye problems, including visual evaluations for glasses and contacts. She is well versed in glaucoma, eye trauma, uveitis, etc. If you are in the office on a Thursday and can benefit from an eye exam,
please ask the receptionist if you can be accommodated. She accepts almost all plans and is very competent.
DR. VERZOSA ON LEAVE
Ida Verzosa, M.D., Emory University Medical Center, senior associate and former 2 handicap golfer trained by Dave
Ledbetter when she was in a high school in Florida, is very pregnant. As of August 7th, she is on maternity leave, anticipating to return full-time in September. SHEILA CAIN AT LENOX HILL
Sheila Cain, M.D. has left YaffeRuden to be a teaching attending
at Lenox Hill Hospital Medical Clinic. She left at the end of June and promises to visit on a recurrent basis. We miss Dr. Cain very much and wish her well (though we fully expect her to be bored with the hospital in
the near future.) WELCOME DRs. CHINIGO & DIVAN (and VO)
Amy Rossman Chinigo, M.D. going the offices of YaffeRuden after being the chief medical resident at Montefiore Medical Center. She was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell, and
attended the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Vamil Divan, M.D., joins the offices of YaffeRuden after completing his residency at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. He was graduated Summa Cum Laude in his hometown of
Buffalo, New York. Dr. Divan has spent time understanding the inner workings of the pharmaceutical industry at Pfizer, and the managed care industry, working with Oxford. Thao Vo, M.D. temporarily joins the offices of
YaffeRuden, replacing Dr. Verzosa while on maternity leave. She grew up in Vietnam, and attended Harvard, where she was graduated Magna Cum Laude. She attended the Columbia University Medical Center, and did her
internal medicine residency at New York University, before spending a year as an attending physician at Harbor Hospital Center in Baltimore. Thao was intending to stay with us full-time, but her pharmacologist fiancé
has been offered a major 2-year position in Florida, and she will only stay until Ida returns. We have reason to expect that she will be back! ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS COMING
We are actively pursuing the use of electronic medical records in
the office. We expect that with government security mandates, coding requirements, and the advancing technology, that this is the time to move forward. We intend to have a state-of-the-art package, which will integrate
with our "award-winning", state-of-the-art website, to enhance the efficiency of communicating with our patients. Theoretically, you will be able to retrieve your labs online with a password, accompanied by a voice file
that we can use to explain the findings. We will be able to securely transfer records to other physicians during consultations, and will be able to pull up charts immediately at the time of the phone call or e-mail.
This will greatly enhance efficiency, ease prescription refills, and minimize phone waiting time. We will attempt to further enhance the package by consulting with a website integrator who will trail us around the
office for a few weeks, and offer customized enhancements to optimize efficiency of service and communication. A private office has never done this before and we are excited about the prospect of being on the cutting
edge of medical information technology. This will also enable us to reopened our old office and service patients in a private setting at that site, as well as possibly having other satellite offices in the next few
years. POSITIVE FEEDBACK - THANK YOU.
We are very excited about the positive comments and positive feedback we have received regarding his website. Dr. Yaffe has applied for an intellectual patent on the "ontime" button. We generate a lot of valuable
feedback, both good and bad, that helps us understand how to better serve our patients. We learn a lot about doctors we have referred you to, etc. HOW CHARMING
The Ophelia Devore School of Charm conducted a seminar in the office on August 11th
which was well attended by our check-in, phone and reception staffs. While it is admittedly hard to work in a setting of fast-paced, impatient, sick and irritable New Yorkers, I am hoping that "Ophelia's'" seminar will
further enhance the ability of our staff to function in a friendly, civil, and understanding mode!! We sincerely want feedback, good and bad, as it pertains to the staffs' collective and individual charms. 20/20 REDUX
The 20/20 segment featuring our office
management and "ontime button" has yet to air! We were told that it was a good piece and that it would definitely be shown, but at this point, we are skeptical. We will inform you of any updates. YOM KIPPUR & ROSH HOSHANNA
The office will be
open on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hoshanna from 9 until 5. Two physicians will be in attendance. POLITICAL DISCUSSION GROUPS
Dr. Yaffe is in the 22nd year of his monthly political discussion groups. If interested, inquire with Dr. Yaffe, and he will place you on
the email list. WELCOME ANNE RENTON
Anne Renton, physical therapist of Australia, has joined Sam Lippin as the evening physical therapist, 3 days per week. She is a very competent and popular lady. CONGRATULATIONS TO DR. YAFFE
for being included in the Best Doctors in the United States,
and Best Doctors in New York books, as excerpted in New York Magazine. He has no idea how the selections were made, realizes that lots of good people were left out, and realizes that maybe they were just trying to sell
him a plaque. GALLERY OPENING
On
Thursday March 15th, the Yaffe Ruden Gallery will feature an exhibit by photographer Howard Roy Katz. All are invited to the 7:30 PM showing. PHONE SYSTEM
In an effort to increase the efficiency of our phone service we installed two
T1 lines via Teligent approximately two weeks ago. The transition from Verizon to Teligent has been anything but "seamless", as promised. Our voicemail blew, we lost a server on the computer, we were unable
to forward calls to the service for coverage, and we lost hundreds of calls to unidentified voice mailboxes. Many called and got messages like. "the number you have reached has been disconnected."
Sometimes it just answered, "leave a message", and many of those we never received on our end. Sometimes the calls just went to other places, and patients reported getting all sorts of weird
connections. Between e-mail, the website frustration button, and perseverance most have been able to ultimately get through. In the meantime, Dr. Yaffe, Dr. Ruden and the staff have spent about 30 hours of
consulting time trying to integrate Verizon, Teligent, and our service provider, O'rourke Services to bring the system back. Our staff has performed admirably, in that nearly every call involved an apology and an
explanation. We hope no one found any of our staff-members short-tempered or irascible, and we apologize for the inconveniences encountered. As of Monday, November 27th, we still have not resolved
all issues, though we think the responsible companies at least know what they have to do to finish. Bear with us during this hair-pulling-out experience extraordinaire. In any true emergency, just come in to
the office, or if it is after office hours, head to The Lenox Hill Hospital ER on 77th
and Lexington. Thanks for your support, and we don't ever want to hear the word "seamless" again. Drs. Yaffe and Ruden. Y&R ON 20/20
The office had a very pleasant visit from a production crew at ABC's 20/20 in late September. They had heard about the ontime button
on our website and were preparing to do a feature on waiting in doctor's offices. They asked if they could spend time monitoring our office on 'a regular day'. They spent eight hours with us, discussed our recent transition history and the inefficiencies of re-establishing the office in a new, much larger space. We explained that our ontime button was an attempt to be much more efficient in not wasting our patients' time by giving them advance online notice of any significant delays. The day went well and we expect to be a minor part of an episode on 'waiting for doctors', hopefully to be aired
October 19th. GALLERY OPENING NIGHT EVENT
On
Friday November 3rd, Gary Kane, Yafferuden Curator, will feature his own photographic exhibition called "LIFESTYLES IMAGES
1980-2000.". All our invited
for a glorious night celebrating Gary's work as well as his curatorial skills. He has approximately twenty artists lined up to exhibit in the Yafferuden galleries over the next two years, including some very special surprises. See him , see his stuff, get on his good side, bring a sample of your stuff if you are interested in exhibiting, and share in a wonderful evening. 7:30 - 10:00 PM
RUDEN SHOW ON EYADA.COM
Dr Ruden will start a live series on issues at the forefront of medicine on eyada.com, every
Monday night starting September 11th. The show will feature live interviews, and will be archived for future reference. GALLERY OPENING THURSDAY, SEPT. 21
On Thursday, September 21st, at 7:30, John Mitchell 's Paintings
opened the Fall season at the Yafferuden Galleries. John, a Yale Art Graduate, has exhibited in Soho, and lives in a converted laundromat in Brooklyn. His sophisticated mythological images will be available for viewing through January.
Thanks to all who joined us for the wine and cheese reception and making our Fall Gallery Opening a success. OFFICE PHONES
We are very motivated to optimize the office phone answering policies. We
realize that it is very important for patients to be able to contact us easily and efficiently. Our web site gives patients new options for efficiently reaching us, and hopefully unburdens the phone lines.
Vera Buglione will be formally training the phone-answering staff. She will be also performing backup answering during peak phone hours-
Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings.We have opted to have the doctor's messages go into voicemail, rather than have patients on hold when multiple calls come into the same line. WE ARE HOPING TO GUARANTEE
responding to voicemails within FIVE MINUTES!! Please be patient during our transition to the e-mails. Please give us feedback on the secretarial staff. They know that patients can be upset and demanding
when sick and not feeling well, but be aware of the sometimes thankless job they have in responding to hundreds of important and frantic issues during the course of the day. They are very important to us, and
hopefully with your help, we can aim for perfection. They are given the following guidelines:
- Be patient and courteous
- Identify yourself
- If you promise to do something, give the patient your name and follow through!
Let us know if there are problems, lack of followthrough, or miscommunication. Thank you, Drs. Yaffe, Ruden, and Cain TRIPLICATE PRESCRIPTIONS
We are unable to mail routine triplicate prescriptions. If you need Valium,
Xanax, Dalmane, Atarax, Percocet, or any of the other regulated prescription substances, we must see you in the office, make a chart note, and document the need for the ongoing prescription. Dr. Eileen DiFrancesco,
an excellent psychopharmacologist, is spending afternoons in the office, and is helping us optimize long-term solutions for patients with chronic anxiety, sleep disorders,etc. Please speak to your primary care doctor
if you need clarification on this, preferably at the time of your visit to fill the triplicate prescription.
7:15 AM APPOINTMENTS WITH DR. YAFFE
Dr Yaffe will come in early for 7:15 am appointments, several days per week.. Because he is coming in early, it is
important to call a day or two in advance if for some reason that appointment needs to be cancelled. Please expect a reconfirmation a day before a 7:15am appointment. Dr. Yaffe REFERRALS
Our referral desk is by far the biggest problem we
have in the practice of medicine. There are all sorts of confusing conflicts that decrease the efficiency of referrals. For a taste of what the referral ladies go through see Vera''s Chronicles, issue 2.
We are attempting to institute e-mail referrals now that the web site is online. If you have a specific referral request, please fill out the form as best as you can, and submit. We are under scrutiny from the
managed care system, the hospital PHO, and our peers to practice cost-effective medicine. We have been asked to see everyone before we send anyone for a referral, but we feel that it is sometimes in the
patient's best interest to be sent directly if a referral is perfectly obvious. We will work with you on this, but expect us to often contact you, when you submit a referral request. If the
referral is appropriate, and the information is accurate, we can submit it to the insurance company. Realize that it may take 24 hours, sometimes with vigorous interchange, before we hear back from the insurance company
with an approval or denial. By being online our referral ladies will not need to spend twenty minutes on hold, a hundred times daily, waiting to speak to the insurance care people. This hopefully will enable
them to be able to answer directly when you call, making the entire experience a little more pleasant for everyone. Please be familiar with the referral details of your policy. If you find yourself in an
office without a referral, it may result in a few hour process to get a referral. If our ladies are working on 15 other referrals at the same time, with others waiting, it may not happen until the next day.
Please plan ahead. If you have other thoughts on how we might expedite the referral process, please let us know. We will figure out a way to make this work, and we think the internet will help.
Drs. Yaffe, Ruden, and Cain YOUR WORLD SECTION OF WEBSITE
We are very excited about receiving announcements of projects, business startups, awards, performances, etc. from our patients. We anticipate about twenty or thirty monthly
announcements that I will edit and include as a monthly what's happening update. Use this as a PR bulletin board, realizing that we have a lot of very creative and influential patients who will be keeping an
eye out on this update. Upon submitting this information, your direct phone information will not appear on the site, but if an individual wants to get in touch with you, they can e-mail me and get a business
phone number or e-mail. PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT POLICY
In an
attempt to see patients on the day they call, all office visits can be seen immediately first by one of the physician's assistants. Each of the the PA's is well-trained is assessing nearly every acute and chronic
situation that we see in the office. After an initial evaluation, one of the physicians, usually Dr. Sheila Cain, will evaluate the situation, and finalize a treatment plan.Drs. Yaffe and Ruden are very
willing to come in and see our patients, to review questions, treatments, etc. Do not be shy about asking. Even if is just to say hello! Realize that we must be fully pre-booked in advance
to pay our overhead in these days of managed care, but we will both try very hard to be there for you. We are very happy to have both Sheila Cain, M.D., and Daniel Wilds, M.d. as our associates, and we
can expect more excellent physicians to join us over the years. ONTIME BUTTON
Note the ontime button on our home page. We will try to make this new innovation work. Give us a little time on this one. We will try to update this
half-hourly. We will not be entirely accurate. Realize that there will be conflicts as to which patient goes first- the 1:30 patient who comes at 1:55 because Dr. Ruden is listed at 30 minutes behind,
or the 2:00 patient who arrived early at 1:30. If the 1:30 patient checks in and tells the receptionist he noted the 30 minute delay, of course he would be the next patient seen. We hope this ontime
innovation is helpful and useful. Please give us feedback, but also give us a little time. To our knowledge no one has tried this before. Click here for "Ontime" Page. FRUSTRATION BUTTON
If you are frustrated by something that has, or hasn't, happened in the office- HIT
THE FRUSTRATION BUTTON on the home page. Diane Wilson, the office manager will attempt to respond within an hour between 8am and 5pm. This will hopefully diffuse difficult situations, give us feedback as to
where problems exist, and serve as a management tool to detect and resolve problem areas. As far as we know, this has never been attempted before. Give us a little time with this one. Future
office announcements will address some issues uncovered in your feedback.Drs. Yaffe, Ruden, and Cain
VERA BUGLIONE HIRED IN NEW ROLE
Vera, longtime personal secretary, office heart and soul, person extraordinaire, and one-day-per-week
anthropologist, has essentially worked in the office "part-time" for 14 years while her daughter was in school as a piano prodigy at Juillard. Now that her daughter, Cookie, has graduated, Vera, a Ed.D. in
cultural anthropology, was destined to return to academia. We are happy to announce that Vera, after a one-week hiatus, has returned as a special projects manager, staff trainer, human resources manager, and
in-office cultural anthropologist. Vera will spend several hours weekly interviewing patients, writing papers, working with grad students, etc., in an effort to better understand the social and cultural
implications of the practice of medicine in the 21st century, in the era of managed care, in Manhattan. She has already written three issues of her monthly chronicles. She is functioning
very independently in this context, and is very happy to be here. The doctors and staff of Yaffe and Ruden are very, very happy to have her back!!!If you have ideas for cultural or anthropological research, or
ideas for her chronicles, contact her directly at extension 224. E-MAIL PRESCRIPTIONS
We have been asked by CareInsite, a large company recently taken over by Healtheon/WebMD, to be an alpha tester for their prescription e-mail program. We will be
able to do non-triplicate refills efficiently, through the managed care programs, looking for drug interactions, etc. We hope that this program will start soon, but with the merger, it has apparently
been delayed until December. In the mean time we will respond to your email requests by phone or e-mail and try to make this work as well as possible. We will have an office announcement when we have more
info. iMACS IN RECEPTION ROOM
We are proud to offer
IMACS for patient use in the reception room. Since we will be using these for patients to fill out information online for patient information, and patient history, there may be times when one of the
receptionists asks a patient to relinquish the use of the IMAC for this purpose. Otherwise feel free to use them to pass the time of day, check e-mails, order shoes, visit some of those Medlinks you've intended-to-visit-but-never-got-around-to, etc.
ART GALLERIES
The art galleries are for your
enjoyment. Artists, associated with the office, will exhibit for four months at a time, on a rotating basis. Each month we will have a reception for the new exhibit, and patients are invited. See the
gallery page for the schedule. Gary Kane, curator, is administering the exhibitions. The pieces of art are for sale through Gary Kane. As hosts, we get to keep one piece of work per exhibition, we do
not benefit financially from the sale of the art. However, as "patrons" of our artists we would very much like them to do well, get recognized, get sold, make a few bucks, etc. So look around. See if
there is anything you like. Maybe Gary is open to negotiations. If you want to look around while you are waiting, ask the receptionist. If there is time, and and there are only a few people
looking around, she will give you a pass to look around. Take notes, buy something.. Also, we are experimenting by having patients caption the photos and the art. Feel free to leave a caption, laugh at
someone else's caption.If you prefer to look around after your appointment, ask the checkout ladies. The artists appreciate this. Obviously, we are first and foremost a doctor's office. We have
gotten wonderful feedback from patients and the art community on our gallery project. Please respect the privacy of the doctors and patients while in the hallway. We hope this thing works and thrives.
Drs. Yaffe, Ruden, and Cain ROOM Q
In an effort to
facilitate quick visits to the office for simple appointments, such as shots (when you know exactly what you need), blood pressure checks, weight checks, simple follow up blood tests, room Q is available from 8am
to 4pm. Indicate to the reception ladies that you think you need just a Quick visit (Q room), and if it is open and available, theoretically you should be able to walk in, get taken care of, have a quick
note written by the physician assistant, and get checked out within 15 minutes.Because of manpower needs, especially during busy periods, that we can't always fulfill this goal, but we should be able to try.
Give us feedback please. GALLERY OPENING NIGHT EVENT
On Friday, September 15th, at 7:30, John Mitchell 's Paintings
will open the Fall season at the Yafferuden Galleries. John, a Yale Art Graduate, has exhibited in Soho, and lives in a converted laundromat in Brooklyn. His sophisticated mythological images will be available for viewing through January.
Please join us for a wine and cheese reception until 9 P.M. GALLERY OPENING NIGHT EVENT
On Friday October 6th, Gary Kane, Yafferuden Curator, will
feature his own photographic exhibition. All our invited
for a glorious night celebrating Gary's work as well as his curatorial skills. He has approximately twenty artists lined up to exhibit in the Yafferuden galleries over the next two years, including some very special surprises. See him , see his stuff, get on his good side, bring a sample of your stuff if you are interested in exhibiting, and share in a wonderful evening.
RUDEN SHOW ON EYADA.COM
Dr Ruden will start a live series on issues at the forefront of medicine on eyada.com, every
Monday night starting September 11th. The show will feature live interviews, and will be archived for future reference. |
