01/31/2022
I have immense gratitude for my work as a physician, surgeon and gynecologist. My patients give me the strength to keep going in what has been the most difficult 18 months. Over the past 18 months, I have not only been dealing with the severe effects of COVID pandemic personally and financially but also the effects of divorce ultimately culminating in trial in court over the past week, it is not over yet unfortunately.
During this time Maui Leialoha has dealt with serious staffing challenges in addition to keeping up with new COVID events weekly, frequent surges, changing guidelines and elective surgery mandates and the need to implement new protocols to keep myself, my staff and my patients safe in addition to dealing with divorce and astronomical legal bills. And yes, your friendly doctor's office is now the pentagon.
While I take immense professional satisfication from my work as your physician, I do need to change how I practice to make it sustainable for all of us. Unfortunately PPP loans and stimulus money meant to survive my practice and retain staff is subject to scruity by your spouse in a divorce. PPP loans are not meant to subside luxury trips, dining and vacations by a divorcing spouse, but we live in a world where this has to be explained and clarified.
To my patients, we encourage you to use telehealth when I recommend it - the benefits are, reduced exposure and risks, reduced PPE costs, the ability to screen you for your risks and ability to take time to coach proper PPE use, personal risk assessment and judgement for discretionary activities. Obviously pap smears cannot be done via telehealth, we have remained available for in person visits. But we also expect understanding that just because you are asked to schedule a telehealth visit first, doesnt mean we dont provide in person visits. We do ask that you trust my judgement as a physician if you choose to become or remain my patient.
We remain very understaffed but we are available for medical issues. Before you call, please ask yourself if you really need to call us. Spruce messages make for more efficient work flow. We ask that you familiarize yourself with Spruce for messaging and patient portal for lab results and online payments. The more calls we receive, the less efficient we are and longer the delays in responding to you. Please dont call or contact us for billing issues at this time. We dont have staffing to deal with non-urgent issues/billing issues at this time.
