Insurers in Pennsylvania are required to approve payment for emergency room visits based on a "Prudent Layperson" standard. That means they must pay if a person with average knowledge of health information would believe their problem would cause permanent disability or death if not treated immediately.
While it is no longer necessary to get a primary care doctor's approval to go to an emergency room, please call us at (215) 755-0700 if your problem is not life-threatening. We can often see you more quickly and conveniently than an emergency room. More importantly, we are sometimes able to give emergency room personnel critical information about you to make sure your problem is cared for correctly.
You can call our answering service for emergencies 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Please use the answering service only for emergencies; for non-emergency matters, you will find your calls answered more quickly if you call after the office re-opens. On the other hand, if your problem is a serious emergency, do not hesitate to call us. We would be much more upset to think you went all night sitting up in a chair unable to breathe than to be awakened by a late call!
Should your problem be an emergency, but you do not hear back within 30 minutes, please call again to make sure your page went over the system.
IF YOU HAVE CALLER ID, YOU MUST DIAL *87 BEFORE CALLING THE EMERGENCY SERVICE, SO THE DOCTOR CAN GET THROUGH FROM HIS/HER PHONE!!!!! You may have dialed a number and accidentally blocked calls from unidentified local numbers without knowing it. Dial *87 whether you think you have "Anonymous Call Rejection" or not.