What to expect at your asthma clinic visit

It’s our goal to help you and your child understand as much as possible about asthma. Once you understand your child’s asthma the easier it will be to control.

Preparing for a clinic visit

To help us complete initial paperwork and concentrate on your child’s care, it’s best to arrive about 15 minutes before your scheduled appointment. That way, we can zip through the registration and insurance process (remember to bring your insurance card and co-pay) and concentrate on what’s most important to us — talking with you and taking great care of your child. We accept many health insurance plans, but you may need a referral from your child’s doctor before your child sees us. It’s a good idea to give your insurance company a call before your visit to learn about your specific benefits.

In addition, please bring your child’s asthma medicines and spacer/holding chamber to the appointment so we know what your child has been taking.

During the visit

• Getting to know your child. We start each visit with an exam and medical history. We’ll ask lots of questions about your child’s asthma, and take plenty of notes. This helps us understand your child’s asthma so we can better determine how to control it. Do you have questions for us? Ask away.
• Breathe in, breathe out. If your child is age 6 or older, we’ll have your child do a breathing test, called spirometry. It measures how well your child moves air in and out of their lungs. This gives us important information about how well your child’s lungs are working and how they respond to asthma medicine.
• Allergy testing. We may also do a blood test to see if your child has any allergies to things like mold, pollen, cats, dogs or dust mites.
• Let’s talk asthma. Once we’ve examined your child and run whatever tests we need, we’ll sit down and talk. We’ll give you some basic information about asthma in children and how it affects your child’s lungs. We will review the best way to use asthma medicines and give you the equipment you need to deliver these medicines.
• Making an asthma action plan Together with you and your child we’ll develop an asthma action plan especially for your child. This plan will outline the early signs of an asthma flare-up, which medicines to take during a flare-up and when to get help.
• Questions? Bring them on. It’s normal to have questions. We’ll do our best to answer them all. And, if more questions come up after you leave the office, just give us a call.