Petite Pediatric Care is a membership-based practice, prioritizing the doctor-patient relationship to provide high quality, efficient, personalized care to our patients. Membership includes all well visits, sick visits, and direct access to Dr. Wheeler. All members are provided a secure access number in order to text or call to schedule appointments, ask questions, send pictures, request refills, and more.
Being able to communicate directly with your pediatrician is a game-changer for busy parents. Like our name says, we intentionally keep our practice small, which allows us to get to know our patients well and to ensure access to the doctor and availability for appointments when needed.
Families must meet with Dr. Wheeler before joining the practice. We want to learn about your family, answer any questions, and make sure we are a good fit for your needs.
The Old Way:
Call to get an appointment or ask a question: endless voice menus, long hold times, indifferent front desk staff.
Wait days for a response to a message or refill request, often monitored by gatekeepers, so may or may not ever be seen by your actual doctor.
Get an appointment with "whoever is available."
Long wait times, crowded waiting rooms, fussy kids.
Rushed appointments.
Surprise extra charges after the visit.
Unnecessary appointments for simple issues because that's how the provider/system makes a profit.
Unnecessary Urgent Care visits because your provider isn't available.
Impersonal, factory feel.
The Petite Pediatric Care Way:
Text to make or change an appointment.
Direct access to your doctor for quick questions and more in-depth advice.
Get a response within minutes to a few hours.
Convenient same- or next-day appointments, including home visits for newborns and weekend office visits if needed and available.
Minimal wait time and more time with your doctor.
Simple, transparent pricing.
Avoid unnecessary visits if possible for issues that can be managed by text or phone call.
Feel like you have a trusted partner to help make sense of all the information--less Googling, more peace of mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Petite Pediatric Care sees patients from newborn to 18 years old.
Due to the unique nature of our clinic, Petite Pediatric Care does not have set office hours, and Dr. Wheeler is almost always available. She is in the office most weekdays and evenings/weekends as needed.
Expectant parents who are interested in membership should schedule a prenatal meet-and-greet with Dr. Wheeler. Once you are accepted into the practice, simply complete the registration form to secure your baby's spot, then let us know once the baby arrives, so we can officially add them to the PPC family!
While in the hospital, the hospital team will take care of the baby's needs until discharge. Notify the hospital team that you are a member of PPC, so they can send us the relevant medical paperwork.
Once you know the day of discharge, text or call Dr. Wheeler to schedule your baby's first newborn visit. Dr. Wheeler will come to your home (within a 25-minute drive of the office) for any visits in the first 2 weeks to give you time to rest and figure out the carseat :)
We understand that plans change, so we request that you notify us by 5 pm on the day prior to your appointment if you need to cancel or change your appointment to a different day. This can easily be done by text or phone call.
If you're running late, just text to let us know!
After the first no-show or same-day cancellation, a $50 fee may be charged for future same-day cancellations.
Peite Pediatric Care will administer vaccines in the office when possible. We follow the AAP immunization schedule and require that all "school-required" vaccines are up to date to be a PPC member. This does NOT include Flu and Covid vaccines.
We are happy to discuss vaccines and answer questions but believe that childhood immunizations are safe, save lives, and can prevent severe illness and permanent disability.
While we respect everyone's right to decide what is best for their family, it is our responsibility to protect our patients and our community. If you do not plan to vaccinate your child according to medical recommendations, then our practice will not be a good fit for your family.
We answer all non-urgent messages and calls on weekdays from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.
For questions requiring an urgent response, please call Dr. Wheeler on the member access line.
For true emergencies, please call "911".
Dr. Wheeler will provide advance notice for any planned absence and notice as soon as possible for any absence due to illness or family emergency.
She may still be available by text, phone, and email during these times.
In the unusual event that Dr. Wheeler is completely unavailable for an extended time, we will make arrangements for a board-certified physician to attend to any patient needs that arise.
No, Petite Pediatric Care is self-pay. Our membership and services are out-of-network with all insurance carriers.**
Although we would love to accept insurance, insurance carriers have unfortunately made it almost impossible for small primary care practices to participate with them. Their profit-focused policies prevent the kind of hands-on, personalized care with longer visits and direct access that Petite Pediatric Care offers.
We want to keep our focus on patient care. By removing the middle men, we are proud to offer excellent service and care with transparent pricing.
Our members often use HSA and FSA accounts to pay for PPC membership and costs, but we recommend that you verify with your account managers as rules may vary.
If your insurance plan offers out-of-network benefits, we can provide you with an itemized receipt (a "super-bill") at the end of each visit that you can submit to your insurance carrier for reimbursement directly back to you, based on your coverage agreement.
**Vaccines are billed through insurance.
We require that all patients have insurance or participate in a healthcare share plan to ensure coverage for high cost items that we cannot provide, such as specialist consultations, emergency room visits, surgery, imaging (x-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc), and hospitalization. Without coverage, a single unanticipated medical event, such as a car accident or surgerical emergency (like appendicitis), can result in bills totalling tens of thousands of dollars.
When choosing your insurance coverage, we recommend NOT choosing an HMO plan, as these require any referrals to come from "in network" providers only, so we will not be able to provide referrals.
PPC offers reduced-cost labs, but if you prefer, these can be processed through insurance instead.
Membership can be cancelled at anytime with no cancellation fee or penalty. If the full year's fee has been paid, PPC will refund the prorated amount for the months being cancelled.
