Dear Friends and Patients of Navon Health and Dr. Lara Litov:

Your safety, health, and continued medical care and attention are of great importance to us.  Therefore, as part of our continued effort in protecting you and our staff, slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community, and comply with the latest CDC and WA State guidelines, we have updated and are posting our procedures and protocols.

Please take a moment to review this letter.

We have shifted our practice to predominantly assist patients via secured HIPAA compliant virtual/Telehealth appointments. We still offer some limited in-office appointments for Dr. Litov’s patients. Please feel free to contact Dr. Litov prior to discussing which type of appointment is best for you and your health.

Please note: Our office is not open to walk-ins.  To limit the number of people in the office at any given time, we are seeing people in person by appointment only.

For Telehealth/virtual Consultations:

We use secured video conferencing through our medical management system, Jane app. This is the same system you need to use to schedule your appointments, get your labs, and see your treatment plans. We are grateful to utilize a system that is easy for our patients to use.  Once someone has scheduled and is a patient, we send a link that puts your right into your private portal telehealth.  We have had numerous patients comment on how easy it is to use.  You have the ability to use your computer or phone (iPhone/Android).

In telehealth visits, we have the capacity to evaluate and diagnose conditions, order laboratory and diagnostic imaging, send prescriptions to your pharmacy, do a nutritional evaluation and counseling/coaching, do mental health counseling, do lifestyle evaluation and treatments, prescribe hormones and supplements, and provide you with sound medical guidance.

For in-office appointments:

To reduce crowding in our waiting rooms, we ask patients who are to be seen in-office to remain outside (e.g., stay in your vehicle), if feasible, until 5-10 minutes prior to your appointment. We are scheduling a 30-minute gap between patients so that there will be no crossover in the waiting room and there is time for the area to air out.

• When you enter the waiting room and before being brought back to the exam room, I will take your temperature.
• All people who come into the office are required to wear a mask. If you forget yours, I am happy to provide you with one.
• The clinic rooms are sanitized between each patient and we have an air purifier running in the office.

In addition, you will get a short and quick COVID-19 risk survey the day before your scheduled appointment via email. It is required for you to fill this out prior to being seen in the office. This will help both you and me to understand the potential COVID-19 infection risk at the time of your appointment. Depending upon the results of that survey, we may decide together to keep the appointment in-house that day, reschedule or switch to Telehealth if indicated.

Home Monitoring Tools

We are asking that everyone has these tools at home to help monitor their own health and be able to provide data to the provider:

• Blood Pressure Cuff with heart rate. Ideally, this would be a blood pressure cuff that tests 3 times in one sitting and averages the numbers. Often the first blood pressure reading is higher than the later ones. We find the cuffs that take the pressure 3 times is the most accurate.
• Pulse Oximeter monitor – to check for oxygenation in the blood
• Thermometer
• A Spirometer (for checking lung capacity) – especially if you have had COVID-19.
• A small flashlight that you can shine in your mouth while on telehealth, if you have a mouth concern or for part of a neurological exam.
• Weight Scale – many people with post-covid syndrome have difficulty maintaining their weight. It is important to be able to monitor.
• Blood sugar monitoring devices if diabetic or pre-diabetic

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your cooperation in helping us decrease the spread of Covid-19 while providing medical care.

Wishing us all a healthy 2021!

Dr. Lara Litov
Navon Health