Updated COVID-19 MESSAGE – Please Read
We are your eye doctors!
As of July 13 – we have resumed regular hours at all our offices;
Monday – Friday 8:00am – 5:00pm
at Albany, Clifton Park, Schenectady, Schodack and Troy.
We are now providing all types of eye care appointments from routine and follow-up care to urgent and emergent care at all our locations.
Our surgery center is open and we are once again performing eye surgeries at the Albany Regional Eye Surgery Center (ARESC). To learn more about eye surgery safety, follow this link Surgery Safety
Optical Services are fully open at each of our offices providing all services, everything from minor repairs to contact lens orders or filling new vision scripts / new eyewear.
We are continuing to offer telehealth appointments as a means of flexible, on-demand, home-based, care.
Ophthalmic Consultants of the Capital Region is committed to keeping our patients and staff safe while continuing to provide quality care.
Please see our CLINIC, ENHANCED CLINIC SAFETY and SURGERY CENTER SAFETY MEASURES noted below.
MEDICAL SERVICES
Eye Care Appointments
We are currently scheduling all appointment types – from routine eye exams to essential, urgent and emergent eye care visits.
If you are not sure if you should make or keep your appointment, please call any of our offices. We are resuming annual and follow-up exams along with all other eye care needs.
Telehealth Visits
Patients can use a smartphone, tablet or computer to conduct their virtual telehealth visit. If you are unable to access a way to use video for “telehealth,” please don’t worry – our specialist eye doctors can consult with you by telephone.
Please contact our office at 518-438-5273 to schedule an appointment and for answers to any questions about what to expect during your first telehealth visit. You may call us 24/7 and one of our doctors will be available to return your call.
Injections and In-Office Lasers
We are still providing these sight-saving procedures. Please call any of our offices if you have any questions or concerns regarding your injection or laser procedure appointment.
Outpatient Surgery
We are now able to schedule all elective surgeries at the outpatient surgery center. We are first working to reschedule patients whose procedures were previously canceled. Additionally, we are adding on new surgeries for our patients as are needed.
In-Office Lasers
At this time, we are still providing sight-saving laser procedures. We will be contacting all patients with a laser procedure appointment to confirm the time and location. Please call any of our offices if you have any questions or concerns regarding your laser procedure appointment.
Outpatient Surgery
All elective surgeries at the outpatient surgery center have been postponed until further notice. Regarding urgent and emergent surgeries, while we continue to monitor the pandemic, we are looking at each eye surgery appointment individually and deciding when to perform the surgery based on the urgency of each patient’s situation. In very select cases we are currently performing sight-saving eye surgeries.
Clinic Safety Measures
Visit Preparation, Check-in procedures, and social distancing
- Prior to coming to our office, if possible, please check your body temperature. If your temperature is 100.4 degrees or higher, please call our office to cancel your appointment.
- Please plan on wearing a face mask to cover your nose and mouth. If you do not have a mask, please let us know by calling the telephone number posted on the front door of our office to tell us if you will need a face mask to enter the building. No patient enters the practice without a mask.
- Only patients with appointments will be permitted to enter the office. Patients should not come through the door prior to the Arrival Time given. This is very important as we cannot have an overcrowding of patients in the offices which may increase the risk to everyone’s safety.
- The patients will check-in at the front desk, the floor will be marked for appropriate distancing. If a patient is too early for their assigned Arrival Time, the patient may be asked to go back out to their car to wait for the appropriate time.
- If the patient arrives by public transportation, they are to call us using the number on the door to tell us they have arrived and to indicate if they have a mask or not. A mask will be needed prior to entry.
Clinic Safety Measures: Steps we are taking to keep people safe
- We are limiting the number of daily appointments to honor social distancing
- All the desk and counter spaces have the addition of plastic sneeze shields
- All employees wear face masks as do patients
- All slit lamps in examination rooms have medical plastic shields between the patient and the doctor/technician
- Lower face plastic shields used for additional safety over face masks
- Each lane and patient or employee “touch area” is disinfected after each patient encounter
Surgery Center Safety Measures
- Prior to a surgical procedure, the patient is tested for COVID-19. No one with COVID-19 has ever been admitted to the building.
- Only the patient is admitted to the surgical center. Anyone accompanying the patient needs to wait outside the building.
- Everyone wears a mask.
- Equipment is cleaned according to the most current protocols.
- Appropriate social distancing is maintained.
- Temperature checking of all personnel entering the building.
