The Clinical Office for Orchard Health Care

The clinical office is where you normally see Dr. Kanner and Dr. Sobel for medical care. Our address is:

210 Bear Hill Road, Suite 304
Waltham, MA 02451
Tel: (781) 684-0600
Fax: (781) 684-0601

Head nurse Patricia (Pat) Potenza, RN and nurse Anna Cherkassky, RN are our clinical support staff (with an additional medical assistant planned this fall). Sandra Curtin is our practice manager and Cathy Salvucci our administrative and medical assistant.

Office Hours

The office and our phone lines open by 8:15 a.m. and close at 4:00 p.m. Monday to Friday. The staff meet and lunch together from 12:45 to 1:30 p.m. daily. During lunch, messages may be left for administrative or clinical staff, but urgent phone calls can be patched through by the answering service if required to reach Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel during that time. The office is closed weekends and major holidays. Dr. Kanner and Dr. Sobel are normally personally accessible by phone when the office is closed. Dr. Kanner and Dr. Sobel take each other’s out-of-hours calls if either is away. On rare occasions another physician colleague who has worked with our practice, Dr. John Przybylski, assists with out-of-hours calls.

Patient Care Hours

Office visits are scheduled Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. ending at 4 p.m. However, Dr. Kanner and Dr. Sobel will see patients for urgent problems outside those hours as required. If you call with an urgent problem any morning when the office is open, you will be seen that day. Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel will determine what best to do for you in other circumstances.

Laboratory and Imaging Services

We currently use the Newton-Wellesley Hospital laboratory facilities for most required blood work. They include a lab station in Weston center and in the Children’s Hospital Waltham facility. Additionally, Quest labs has a station at Hope Ave in Waltham, as well as many facilities around the state. Our staff can inform you of the various labs’ hours of operation as well as alternatives that should be convenient to you.

Similarly, we arrange X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and other such tests at Newton-Wellesley, Mass General West, Beth Israel or other imaging facilities that are appropriate for the required test, able to give us prompt electronic reports, and are most accessible and timely for your needs.

Telephoning Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel

To phone Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel on any medical matter, including urgent situations, call the clinical office phone, (781) 684-0600. If the office is closed, non-urgent messages may be left on voice mail or you can easily contact the answering service within a few rings. The service will contact Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel promptly.

In the rare event of failure of the phone system in our office or at the answering service so your call is unanswered, and you urgently need to speak to Dr. Kanner, call his cell phone, (617) 967-1500. For Dr. Sobel, call her cell phone, (617) 543-7676. However, sometimes cell reception is poor or fails. So please first try the clinical office phone (781) 684-0600 and work through the answering service.

E-mailing the Office Staff, Dr. Kanner, or Dr. Sobel

• adminOHC@orchardhealthcare.com: For appointments, referrals, billing issues and so forth, use this e-mail. Either Sandra or Cathy will handle the problem or further help as needed:
• sandra@orchardhealthcare.com: Sandra’s direct e-mail.
• cathy@orchardhealthcare.com : Cathy’s direct e-mail
• concierge@orchardhealthcare.com : Will also get to either Sandra or Cathy
• nurse@orchardhealthcare.com: For clinical issues (including prescription refills or lab test orders) for which you need advice or help, please use the nurse email, which is shared by Pat and Anna. They will promptly involve Dr. Kanner or Dr. Sobel as needed.
• drkanner@orchardhealthcare.com: If you need Dr. Kanner for a substantive medical or other issue that requires his personal initial response, use this e-mail. Please use the other e-mails for administrative or clinical support issues.
• drsobel@orchardhealthcare.com: Similarly, if you need Dr. Sobel for a substantive medical or other issue that requires her personal initial response, use this e-mail. Please use the other e-mails for administrative or clinical support issues.

Billing for Medical Care Services

Charges for your office visits and other medical services by Dr. Kanner and Dr. Sobel are billed to your health insurer in the name of Steven R. Kanner, MD, LLC. If something appears awry with the reimbursement from your insurer, or you think you are inappropriately being charged, please contact Sandra or Cathy at the clinical office, (781) 684-0600 and give them all the usual painful details. They do an excellent job at resolving the myriad possible problems. You may also e-mail the details to adminOHC@orchardhealthcare.com.

All payments for office visits and other clinical care go to Steven R. Kanner, MD, LLC at 210 Bear Hill Road, Waltham, MA 02451. For their convenience, members may pay clinical charges not covered by their insurance by the same credit card used for automatic Orchard Health Care membership billing. Members are encouraged to email adminohc@orchardhealthcare.com to authorize these payments.

Orchard Health Care Membership Office

The OHC membership office is in Lincoln at Dr. Kanner’s home. It deals only with issues concerning billing for Orchard Health Care membership fees, such as updating credit card information. For those purposes only, use the membership office phone, (781) 259-0222, or fax, (781) 259-4050, or email to membership@orchardhealthcare.com. Messages, including credit card updates, may be securely left at this phone.

You may also convey the same information to Sandra or Cathy in the clinical office, who will forward it to the membership bookkeeper (Diane Sellew). Payments to Orchard Health Care, LLC for membership fees are best mailed to 12 Bypass Road, Lincoln, MA 01773, but may be mailed to or dropped off in the clinical office.

Membership Billing

Orchard Health Care membership fees may be paid annually or semi-annually (quarterly on request) by check or by credit card (MC, Visa, Amex). Payment due dates are January 1 for the annual payment or the first semi-annual or quarterly payments, April 1 for the second quarterly payment, July 1 for second semi-annual or the third quarterly payment, and October 1 for the fourth quarterly payment.

Annual invoices are sent to the member each fall for the upcoming year. Semi-annual or quarterly invoices are not sent, although payment receipts will be provided upon request. All credit card charges are done automatically semi-annually or each quarter. We request that each member contact the membership office when their credit card in use is updated or changed. Similarly, we request any member who is paying semi-annually or quarterly by check to remember to make the payment by the due date.

Website

Thank you for visiting our website, www.orchardhealthcare.com (temporarily at www.orchardhealthcare.net). The members’ blog section contains our observations on significant medical news, questions and answers, and summaries of generally useful medical information. Comments and questions are welcome.