How to Get Care if You Think You Have COVID-19 Symptoms

Symptoms and testing for COVID-19

Help Stop the Spread of COVID-19

Stay informed with tips to protect yourself and others

Operational Changes Implemented at Sansum Clinic

Essential and Telehealth appointments

How You Can Help Sansum Clinic

Pandemic Relief Fund and donating cloth masks

Community Health is Our Commitment

Sansum Clinic is open and our primary care, specialty care and urgent care providers are dedicated to helping you receive the healthcare you need. With the State’s recent decision to allow for more essential medical services, we are gradually re-opening in order to provide in-person care for a greater number of essential needs that perhaps have been postponed during this time.

If you are in need of care, the following options are available:

  • In-person appointment: If you need to schedule an in-person appointment, please contact your health care provider and they will help determine the best appointment type for you at this time. For patients who do come in for an appointment, it is important to know that we have extraordinary precautions in place to protect the health and safety of our patients and our staff.
  • Telehealth: We are rescheduling many appointment types to Telehealth visits by video and phone so patients can see a doctor from the safety of their own homes. We can help you determine if a Telehealth visit is medically appropriate for you. Please call (805) 681-7500 or visit telehealth.sansumclinic.org.
  • Urgent Care: Our Urgent Care Department at 215 Pesetas Lane is still open daily from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm for medical conditions that are unplanned and that need to be treated.

Symptom Checker

MyChart users can access the COVID-19 Symptom Checker, which is a free online tool that will ask you a series of questions and provide you with recommended next steps.  If you have shortness of breath, high fever or severe symptoms, please contact your healthcare provider or call 911.

Related Links

Building Healthy Habits at Home

Things you do as you pass this time at home may become long-term habits. They can be good habits – or bad habits that will be hard to break later. Learn more >

Help Stop the Spread of COVID-19

Here are some tips to protect yourself and others:

  • Cover all of your coughs and sneezes.
  • Thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water often.
  • Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
  • Avoid sharing personal household items like dishes, glasses, cups, silverware, towels and bedding.
  • Clean all ‘high touch’ surfaces daily.
  • Do not have visitors to your home.
  • Observe social distancing of 6 feet even when outside your home.
  • Wear a cloth face mask when out in public.

Stay Informed

For information regarding COVID-19, we recommend the following websites. Information regarding COVID-19 is rapidly evolving and these websites are being updated continuously. For your health and safety, please seek information from reliable sources only:

  1. Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
  2. California Department of Public Health
  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

How to Get Care if You Think You Have COVID-19 Symptoms

COVID-19 symptoms can include:

  • A fever (a temperature of 100.4 or above) or flu-like symptoms
  • Sore throat, new cough or difficulty breathing
  • New muscle aches or fatigue
  • New diarrhea or gastrointestinal symptoms
  • Chills
  • Headache
  • New loss of taste or smell
  • Close contact with anyone who had a fever, flu-like symptoms, cough, possibly has the Coronavirus, or has confirmation of having Coronavirus within the last 14 days

If you think you have been exposed to COVID-19 and develop any of these symptoms, we suggest the following actions. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.

  • Call your Primary Care Provider for medical advice. Your healthcare provider will help determine if you meet the criteria for testing or if you should stay home.
  • Access our COVID-19 Symptom Checker in MyChart. This is an online tool that will ask you a series of questions and provide you with recommended next steps. If you have shortness of breath, high fever or other severe symptoms, please contact your healthcare provider first.

Testing for COVID-19

We are currently following Santa Barbara County Public Health Department guidelines. As testing has become available on a wider basis, testing criteria is less restrictive.

Sansum Clinic and the community have been testing greater numbers of patients and there has been a lower rate of positives.  The turnaround time on test results has decreased from 7-10 days a few weeks ago to now 48-72 hours in most instances. 

Patients with a new cough, fever, and/or GI symptoms that can’t be explained by another cause may be referred for testing if your provider, after a Telehealth or phone evaluation, feels that your symptoms may be a result of a COVID-19 infection.

Patients with symptoms that are not new and can be explained should schedule a Telehealth visit to provide medical history, potential exposure and other factors before scheduling for testing.

Operational Changes Implemented at Sansum Clinic

It is important to know that we have extraordinary precautions in place to protect the health and safety of our patients and our staff.

  • Please note, for your protection and the protection of those around you, we are now requiring everyone to wear a mask upon entering any of our clinic facilities. Masks with valves no longer comply with Santa Barbara County Public Health Department requirements because the valve permits respiratory droplets to easily escape, which places others at risk. If you wear an N95 or other mask with a one-way valve, you must wear a cloth or procedure mask over it. Please make sure to wear a cloth mask throughout the duration of your visit.
  • Due to cancelled non-essential appointments, many locations have temporarily adjusted their hours of operations. Please find a list of all the updated hours here.
  • We are offering Telehealth video visits to provide you care at home. Please note that not all visits can or should be handled through Telehealth. The provider and staff will work together to determine whether an appointment should proceed in-person, move to Telehealth or be postponed.
  • We are screening patients prior to entry into our buildings to limit the potential spread of illness.
  • We are enforcing a No Visitor Policy at this time. If there is a reason that bringing a visitor is critical to an appointment, we will make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. This decision has been made with the health and safety of our patients, staff and physicians in mind.
  • We have changed our Pesetas and Pueblo Pharmacies operations to protect our most fragile patients while also protecting our pharmacy employees so they can continue their important work. Pesetas and Pueblo Pharmacies business hours are now 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, and both locations have moved to closed door operations. The waiting rooms will not be open to the public at this time.

Patients have several options to obtain medication:

  • Curbside pickup will be available at both pharmacies.
  • For the next month, maintenance medications can be mailed with standard delivery within 3 to 5 days.
  • Same-day delivery in the local area will be available for a $7.50 fee.
  • For prescriptions that require a signature, delivery with a requisite fee is available
  • Overnight shipping is also an option with varying fees.
  • Employees will not be charged for mailing of medication, and we will address immediate needs on a case-by-case basis to assure our employee population is taken care of.

Pharmacists will continue to consult by telephone as needed.

The Pesetas Pharmacy will work closely with the Urgent Care team to coordinate care for patients who need medication immediately.

The Pueblo Pharmacy will have a drop box for patients who have hand-written orders.

  • At Urgent Care, we take down patients’ cell phone numbers so they can wait in their car and be called when it is time for their visit.
  • You can also register and pay your copay online prior to your appointment via MyChart, which will allow for a quicker check-in process.
  • In some cases, if you arrive more than 20 minutes early for your appointment, you may be asked to wait in your car and we will call you when it is time to check in.
  • Pre-operative COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic patients who are scheduled for essential surgical procedures that have been delayed and will be performed within Sansum Clinic.

All of these measures are designed to ensure patients can access the care they need in the safest possible manner while abiding by social distancing guidelines.

How You Can Help Sansum Clinic

A number of people have asked how they can help, and so we established the Pandemic Relief Fund. Those funds will be used to purchase much-needed personal protective equipment and to help cover expenses related to our testing site, which continues to be one of the largest testing sites in the County. Click here to make a tax-deductible gift, and please reference Pandemic Relief Fund in the text field that says “Other.”

Due to the shortage of face masks in our community and beyond, Sansum Clinic is now accepting donated cloth masks from the public. There is a red bin at the front door of our Corporate Office at 470 S. Patterson Avenue where we are collecting masks before laundering them and putting them to use where they are needed most. While these are not medical grade masks, they will enable us to continue following the CDC’s guidelines encouraging people to wear cloth masks in public.

Building Healthy Habits at Home

Times of stress and uncertainty can lead to poor choices.

Take time to take care of yourself.

Things you do as you pass this time at home may become long-term habits. They can be good habits – or bad habits that will be hard to break later.