Improving Our Patient Experience to Protect Your Health and Keep You Safe

We understand the stress and challenges that a cancer diagnosis can bring — and COVID-19 has certainly made this difficult journey even more challenging. But your cancer care is too important to put on hold. We are committed to ensuring that you continue to have access to the world-class cancer care you expect from us, in a safe and healthy environment.

Here at MSK, we’ve put in place the strictest safety measures to ensure that you continue to receive the world-class cancer care you expect from us in the safest environment possible. These measures include:

• Patient screenings – All patients are screened the day before any scheduled visit to MSK. Screenings are conducted via phone call, text message or MyMSK (our online patient portal). Patients are also screened at check-in before their appointment.
• Curbside check-in – Wherever possible, we’ve minimized the need for you to wait in our waiting rooms, with new check-in procedures that can be completed from your car or our building entrances.
• Social distancing – We continue to follow social distancing guidelines and are limiting the number of people who can enter our facilities. We’ve spaced out the time between patient visits and we’ve significantly reduced the number of visitors at our locations. Limiting the number of people in our facilities is one of most important safeguards we’ve put in place, and one way we’re doing that is by maintaining a limited visitor policy. (We have resources and technology to enable your loved ones or others you want to join your appointment remotely via phone or tablet.)
• Staff health checks – All staff are screened for any signs of illness and perform daily health checks before reporting to work.
• Virtual visits – In many cases we are able to offer you a telemedicine visit as an effective alternative to in-person care. You can speak to us remotely from the comfort of your home while still having access to our same expert clinical teams.
• Clean & safe environment – We’ve further enhanced our cleaning efforts to disinfect and sanitize all high-touch and public areas. We also require all patients, visitors and staff to wear a mask at all times (which we provide to anyone entering our facilities who doesn’t have one). Some staff are also wearing gloves, gowns, face shields and other equipment.
• Virtual express check-out – If you don’t want to stop by on your way out to schedule your next appointment, let us know and we’ll contact you for any follow-up appointments.

For more information about these safeguards and answers to frequently asked questions, please visit mskcc.org/coronavirus.