Where it's Done

Home visit availability is limited by COVID-19.
For current information visit our website for Limbic Resources, Inc.

Office Visit
We’ve tried, but remote testing using Zoom just doesn’t work. Our patients are rarely technology savy; our WWII vets still call their GPS the “homing device” from their bomber flying days. So we have prepared our offices to make them as safe as possible for patients, a family member who accompanies them and our direct care staff. We clean in-between each patient, and use masks along with sneeze shields to provide physical separation. We’ll go over all the steps with you when you arrive, as your safety during any visit with us is our most important goal. What follows are some guidelines to help you prepare for an office visit:

Bring all medications, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, sleep aides, pain killers, supplements, and vitamins to the evaluation. NO LISTs. Just put all the bottles in a bag and bring them along. Supplements are all "drugs" that are sold with little or no government oversight. See more at the section in this website on Supplements. We'll want to see anything and everything you put in your body that is not food, and we'll review this together.

Bring your eyeglasses and put in your hearing aides and your teeth. Come complete! Bring your insurance information (all cards) if you wish us to bill it on your behalf. Bring any previous medical or psychological reports that you have. For a home visit, please have all this ready and waiting for us.

Home Visit
Arrival Time:
We try to see two patients in a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Craig, our office manager, attempts to set the appointments up in the same town but the Cape is 90 miles long. Count on this: Dr. Elovitz, Dr. Eggleston, or the psychometrist assigned as the examiner will not arrive to your home exactly on time. We often drive an hour between appointments and must handle emergencies as they come up. There is always traffic and construction on Cape Cod. Expect us to arrive ± half an hour of a morning appointment time. Expect us to arrive arrive ± 1 hour around an afternoon appointment time. Best Buy wants a 4-hour window to deliver a refrigerator, so please don't call Craig ten minutes after your estimated appointment time wondering where we are. We will be either early or late, but rarely exactly on time. We give ever patient and family the time they need – this is much different than the average 7-minute medical appointment you are used to. We'll call you if we are falling outside of the ±half hour in the morning or the ±one hour time window in the afternoon. Usually, that means we are lost.

PLEASE NOTE: The examiner is just as likely to arrive early as late, so don't run out for a quick errand or to get coffee–please be at the appointment site at least a half hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon ahead of your scheduled time. We may have a no show (our patients do sometimes forget appointments despite our reminder calls), and thus we may call you to see if we can show up hours early if our morning patient was missing or untestable. Be ready for anything, please just reserve the day and stay home. Also, remember there is a no show fee as we lose half a work day if an appointment is not cancelled, for any reason, 24 hours or more in advance (see the next section about this).

How long is the appointment?
Note appointment times vary based on each patient's speed and case complexity. Once in your home expect the visit to last 2.5 to 3 hours. We will not be going to your living room to sit and chat. We all should sit at a table to manage paperwork, not a coffee table, a kitchen or dining room table with a bit of clear space an one end is fine. We don't need fancy; i.e., a card table or folding TV table and we can make do with what you have or if the patient can’t move from his/her easy chair. Husband, wife, sons, daughters, in-laws are all welcome if they are involved with the patient. We start by taking a history and problem statement, then test, then offer some feedback to the patient and family. A seven page report than follows in about two weeks.

Please have a chairs for everyone who participates so we can talk comfortably before and after the evaluation. The diagnostician may ask for two (2) chairs, one for themself and one for their big bag of test materials, to keep them easy to reach. If the patient can not move from an easy chair or hospital bed, a folding tray table and chair should suffice. Dr. Elovitz carries a folding stool as he goes to homes with "hoarding" to the point where there is no place to sit or even put down a piece of paper. Don't go nuts cleaning or be embarrassed about clutter, we are not the neatness police, we are only coming to your home to help – not to judge.

Do I Prepare my Parent?
Ideally, no. If the patient does not perceive any memory problem in him/herself (and they think you are fussing too much) please don’t say anything. Long explanations of why they need testing will fuel suspicions that can even turn into mild paranoia, spoiling the testing session before we even arrive. As we typically have a PCP’s referral, the examiner will simply say we’re here at Doctor’s so-and-so’s request. If you need to say something, just tell your parent (or spouse) that someone referred by their doctor is coming to see them.

The examiner will introduce him/herself and say we’re here to assess your memory, which is something we do for many, many seniors on Cape Cod. We do this because there are simple treatments (like vitamins and exercise) that can help prevent them from getting worse. That explanation suffices in 99% of cases to make folks comfortable and cooperative, especially as we treat everyone with (sometimes exaggerated) courtesy. If the patient is aware of their memory problems, than you can briefly mention someone is coming at their doctor’s request to “check out their noodle.” The less you say the better, in most cases.

Privacy:
HIPAA rules will cause the diagnostician to have to go silent every time a teenager enters the kitchen to make a sandwich, so kindly arrange for grandchildren to not be present. Also, please check and re-schedule any repairmen, or landscapers coming on the same day as the distraction from them coming in and out and the noise, will negatively affect the testing. Leaf blowers are our worst problem in warm weather, as their noise will destroy the validity of test results because none of us can hear. Remember, we are trying to create a temporary professional office in your home, and doctors don't have workmen walking in or out of their exam rooms, which are sound proofed with no phones. Our appointment in your home is the ideal time to not babysit the grandchildren. However, adult children, a spouse or even close friends of a patient who lives alone are welcome to provide their observations, as long as they can wait somewhere away once the testing begins for its duration.

<– Previous Page ––– Next Page –>