A Message to Referring Providers from Mass General Urology

Dear Referring Provider,

We wanted to provide you with updates regarding the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Urology’s current state of operations, and how we are delivering care to our patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to assure you and our patients that we are available and ready to safely manage a broad spectrum of your patients’ urologic needs during this time.

Gradual Re-opening

Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mass General Department of Urology has continued to provide essential, safe and effective in-person care.

As of June 1, we began to increase in-person appointment availability, with the goal of seeing a larger number of necessary, in-person visits. This includes expanded procedural availability in both the operating room and clinic setting for patients who had been previously deferred, those with newly diagnosed cancer, and functionally limiting or chronic progressive disease.  Our Safe Care Commitment will be in place throughout our Boston and Danvers clinic locations and across the hospital. 

Starting the week of June 15, we plan to offer increased access to in-person new patient consults in both our Mass General main campus and Danvers clinic locations.

Virtual Care

Over the last several months, we have been conducting the majority of ambulatory clinic visits virtually. We have been able to see many of our patients using these new methods, which has worked out very well for both patients and providers. We continue to utilize these tools, specifically the Mass General Zoom for Healthcare platform, to safely deliver care to both new and established patients. Virtual care will continue to be an important part of how we care for patients moving forward, with the goal of ensuring only visits that have in-person components are scheduled in our clinics.

If you have a patient who needs an in-person urology consult, please submit a referral to our department via Epic or fax us a referral to 617-724-0560, and we will call the patient within 48 hours to get them scheduled.

Alternatively, you can call our office at 857-238-3838 and follow the prompts for referring providers. One of our scheduling specialists will be happy to assist you.

Rescheduling Plan

For any of your patients whose care was deferred as a result of the pandemic, we are working around the clock to ensure we reschedule and perform any deferred care in as timely a manner as possible, while also ensuring we abide by the state’s guidelines. Our skilled Care Team Coordinators will stay in close contact; confirming new dates as we receive the “green light” and it is safe to do so. However, should your patient’s clinical status change in any way, please let our team know, as soon as possible. 

For the Patients’ Safety

Below, please find a list of important steps we are taking to ensure everyone’s safety and well-being:

• Reduced volume to allow physical distancing
• Staggered arrival times to prevent patients from being exposed to others
• Enhanced cleaning of the facility
• Symptom screening and masking of patients and staff

Please feel free to share these steps with patients who you are referring to Mass General Department of Urology.

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Our Safe Care Commitment is in place throughout our clinic locations and the hospital:

We SCREEN to protect you, your families and our staff:

• We screen all employees daily—anyone with symptoms of a possible respiratory illness is not allowed to return to work until they are better
• On arrival, we screen all patients and visitors for symptoms of possible COVID-19 infection
• Admitted patients are tested for COVID-19 prior to admission and screened daily for symptoms
• Outpatients are screened prior to and upon arrival, and if symptomatic, are cared for via virtual visits or in designated areas where we use Center for Disease Control-recommended personal protective equipment and implement infection control policies
• We limit visitors coming into the hospital and clinics, and screen visitors for symptoms of possible COVID-19 infection. We ask visitors with symptoms to defer their visits

We CLEAN our hands and spaces, and make it easy for you to do the same:

• We have established cleaning protocols throughout Massachusetts General Hospital
• We have added hand sanitizer stations, so patients, visitors, and staff can clean their hands easily and frequently and provided visual reminders to perform hand hygiene

We PROTECT everyone in our environment:

• We require all people on campus—employees, patients and visitors—to wear a hospital-issued surgical mask
• We have rearranged spaces to accommodate physical distancing and by removing chairs from waiting rooms and, in some areas, installing plexiglass barriers