What to expect during your visit

Tips to make your visit easier:

  • Register at FollowMyHealth for our online services or contact our office.
  • Try to schedule your appointments with your assigned primary care physician.
  • New patients should arrive 30 minutes early.
  • Current patients should arrive 15 minutes early.
  • Bring all of your current medications, or a list of each, to your appointment for your physician to review.

Same-day appointments

  • We offer same day appointments. Monday through Friday, to our established patients with urgent health concerns. If a same day appointment is not available, an appointment will be offered on the following day. If you must miss an appointment, call to reschedule at least 24-hours in advance.

Walk-in appointments

  • We offer walk-in appointments at Portsmouth Family Medicine. Walk-in appointments are not available at Ghent Family Medicine. 

Prescriptions

  • If your doctor prescribes medication for you, our electronic health record system allows us to send it electronically to your pharmacy, helping to eliminate prescription error and your wait time. Prescriptions for controlled substances must be printed for you to pick up from our office (signature and license required).
  • Remember to request refills during your office visit. If you need a renewal between visits, please call your pharmacy, and your pharmacist will contact us. This request may take up to 48 hours to process, so please plan accordingly.

Referrals

  • Insurance companies often require that you have a written referral from your primary care physician prior to receiving specialist care or diagnostic treatment, however, we cannot refer you to a specialist for a condition that we have not previously addressed with you or for specialty care that has already occurred. If your referral has expired, please call us and choose the option for referrals.

Lab or Diagnostic testing

  • Your physician may request additional laboratory and or diagnostic testing. We can usually collect blood specimens for laboratory tests in our office. Some of these can be processed immediately in our on-site laboratory; however, some tests require that the specimens be sent to an outside laboratory. If you require x-rays or other radiological testing, you will be referred to an outside facility. You will be notified of the results either by mail or telephone.