- We offer consultative services for patients/families seeking first or second opinions.
- Patients are a good fit for the program if aged 12 to 18 years and they're experiencing chronic symptoms.
- All patients must complete our intake process before we can schedule in our program.
- We are not able to offer care coordination services for our consultation patients.
The Complex Diagnosis Consult Program is an interdisciplinary consultative service offering help for patients with complex medical issues and/or chronic fatigue symptoms. Our providers are highly experienced in treating the health concerns of adolescents and young adults. We take care to consider patients' symptoms within the larger picture of the patient's life. We discuss how a patient's symptoms might be affected by the physical, mental, emotional, and social changes happening during teenage/young adult years. We recognize that chronic symptoms effect more than one’s physical health; thus, we work with providers in other specialties to offer the best quality of care.
Our goal is to help patients and their families understand the full picture of their medical condition.
We focus on:
- Summarizing the information provided by other specialists and/or previous medical work-up
- Improving patients’ function and symptoms
Recommendations from our program might include (but are not limited to): completing additional testing, medications, physical therapy, dietary changes, or coping strategies for managing chronic symptoms. Our providers may also feel it is helpful to refer patients for consultations with specialists in other departments here at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Your adolescent may be a good fit for this program if the patient is aged 12-18 years AND:
- Has been assessed by their primary care provider for their chronic symptoms, but has not seen any specialists yet and/or is not feeling relief from symptoms
- Has seen additional specialists regarding their chronic symptoms, but would like additional support in managing their chronic symptoms
- Young adults ages 18 to 20 are considered on a case-by-case basis depending on the needs for sub-specialists and our ability to provide collaborative care
What to expect
Our consultation involves two appointments. One appointment is with an Adolescent Medicine doctor, and one is with an Adolescent Medicine psychologist. We require all patients who are scheduled in our program to be seen in person here in Massachusetts for their first visit.
Intake
Any patient interested in being seen in our program must complete our intake process before we can consider scheduling.
- Step 1: Patients/families complete our intake form, which includes questions about demographic information, past medical and mental health history, and current diagnoses and symptoms.
- Step 2: Our team will request the patient’s previous medical records from the primary care office and any other relevant specialist they have seen in the past two years.
- Step 3: Our team meets weekly to discuss new intakes, in which we review the intake form and previous medical records for the patient. We then reach out to families to discuss next steps.
If you are interested in scheduling an appointment with us, please contact 617-355-6168 to begin the intake process.
