Office hours:   Monday 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM*   Tuesday 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM   Wednesday    8:30 AM - 5:00 PM*   Thursday 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM   Friday 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM * During periods of peak demand, we see additional new patients between 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM at the office on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Dr. Livstone performs elective endoscopic procedures (and whatever emergency procedures which arise) on Monday through Friday and emergency procedures which arise on any weekend day that he is on call. We usually try to schedule elective procedures during the morning hours to minimize the duration of fasting a person must undergo on the day of an endoscopic procedure. At least one member of the office staff is present Monday through Friday in the office after 8 AM to receive mail and packages. Due to the tremendous number of administrative activities required for operating the modern medical office, we forward our phones to the telephone answering service from 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM Monday through Friday so the office staff may perform their daily office opening procedures and after 4:30 PM Monday through Friday so the office staff may perform their daily closeout procedures. We also forward the phones to the telephone answering service Monday through Friday between 12 Noon - 1 PM so that the office employees may have a Fair Labor Practices lunch hour. The telephone answering service will hold all non-emergent calls during the mid-day lunch hour until the office reopens at 1 PM. After Hours Emergency Coverage: Dr. Livstone shares after hours evening and weekend call coverage with four other board-certified gastroenterologists. One of these doctors is available by phone (and if necessary to see you at one of the area hospitals) every weekday evening from 4:30 PM until 8:00 AM the following morning; one of these doctors is also available by phone all weekend. If you are having a true gastrointestinal emergency or a serious problem, call the main office line 955-0000; and the telephone answering service will page the doctor on call. Since the doctor on call is covering 5 medical practices on evenings and weekends, it is important that you telephone this office during regular office hours for prescription refills, billing questions, and non-emergency questions or routine medical matters. As a general policy, doctors in this coverage group will not refill prescriptions for narcotics or other controlled substances for patients of the other doctors that they do not know on evenings and weekends; instead, the on-call doctor will advise you to call your doctor's office during regular office hours. If for any reason you believe that your situation is too urgent to wait for a return call from the on-call physician, proceed immediately to one of the area hospital emergency rooms. There, you will be evaluated by the emergency room physicians who will consult the appropriate doctors to see you. Holiday Office Closings: The office is closed New Year's Day, the afternoon of Good Friday, Memorial Day Observed, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, the afternoon of December 24, and Christmas Day. There will be a doctor from the coverage group on call for medical emergencies on each of these holidays. Clinical Privileges: Dr. Livstone has admitting and consulting privileges at Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Doctor's Hospital of Sarasota. Dr. Livstone has endoscopic privileges at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Doctor's Hospital of Sarasota, and the HealthSouth Endoscopy Center of Sarasota. Dr. Livstone also has nuclear medicine privileges at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. When a patient's physical condition and health insurance permit, Dr. Livstone prefers to perform his patients' endoscopic procedures at the HealthSouth Endoscopy Center of Sarasota where the costs for the patient will be approximately 1/3 the cost of having the same procedures performed at either of the area hospitals. In addition to office and hospital consultative services, Dr. Livstone performs the following procedural and imaging services: Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, biopsy, polypectomy Esophageal dilation Esophageal foreign body removal. Photodynamic therapy (laser light activated drug treatment) for esophageal cancer and Barrett's epithelium with high grade Dysplasia Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy insertion, change, and removal. Nuclear Esophageal Transit Studies (tubeless esophageal motility) Solid Phase Nuclear Gastric Emptying Scan Gold Probe, Heater Probe, or Argon Plasma Coagulator treatment of bleeding lesions Argon plasma coagulator ablation of neoplasia. Push enteroscopy of the small bowel M2A video capsule endoscopy (the swallowed camera pill) of the small bowel Breath Hydrogen gas chromatography for lactose intolerance or small bowel bacterial overgrowth Colonoscopy, biopsy, polypectomy, injection therapy, gold probe therapy, Argon plasma coagulator therapy, or heater probe therapy for control of bleeding or for ablation of neoplasia Nuclear Medicine liver-spleen scans Nuclear Medicine gallbladder function scans. If a patient needs a gastrointestinal procedure or study which is not listed above, Dr. Livstone will refer the patient to another physician who is qualified to perform the needed test.