Your Questions Answered: Precocious Puberty, Hypothyroid and Short Stature

On-call endocrinologists at Seattle Children’s are currently spending 20+ hours per week fielding calls from community providers, mostly about three conditions: precocious puberty, hypothyroid and short stature. To support PCPs, we want to bring your attention to algorithms created by Seattle Children’s with input from primary care providers. Our nurses use these same algorithms to triage incoming referrals. We encourage you to consult these resources first and if you still are unsure or if the algorithm didn’t address your question, you are welcome to call the Provider-to-Provider Line (206-987-7777).

Algorithms

• Precocious Puberty
• Hypothyroid
• Short Stature

We appreciate that community providers are doing all they can to manage patients in primary care, which is often the most appropriate setting and helps patients get care more quickly. Nonurgent patients referred to Seattle Children’s typically have a two- to three-month wait for an appointment.

More resources

• Endocrinology algorithms for vitamin D deficiency, goiter and obesity are available here (scroll down to Resources for Providers).
• 30+ other algorithms are located at seattlechildrens.org/algorithms.