Contact a Clinician

It can be a challenge figuring out how to get two busy professionals in touch with each other. This information summarizes the best ways of contacting us if you are a health care professional.

 

For urgent situations – we suggest using more than one communication method. Generally if you call Dr. Forster’s cell phone and also send him an email message you will get the most reliable response. Dr. Forster’s cell phone is 415-385-0963 and his email address is peter@gatewaypsychiatric.com. Please include information about when you can receive a return phone call.

For non-urgent communication – the most efficient way of getting in touch is by sending an email to the clinician (email addresses are always first initial, last name and then gatewaypsychiatric.com) or to Dr. Forster.

Many clinicians are comfortable communicating about patients by email if they don’t include the patient’s full name or other identifying information.

If you are not comfortable with that we also use an email encryption service called Virtru that provides free high-security email that meets HIPPA standards. You can find more information here.

Even if you are not comfortable communicating about patients by email, email is the best way of finding a time for the two of us to talk by phone.

You can also –

Call the main Gateway Psychiatric number (415-551-0520) and leave a confidential voice mail. If you don’t know who you want to talk to leave the message for Dr. Peter Forster. You can expect to get a call back in the evening (5-6 pm on weekdays) if you call during a weekday, or the next morning, if you call after hours.

Send us a fax (415-551-0524). We check faxes once or twice a day. You can expect to hear back by the next business day if you fax us information. Our faxes are handled in a secure fashion and so clinical documents can be safely faxed to u.

Mail us a letter (548 Market Street #18351, San Francisco, CA 94104). Mail is by far the slowest way of communicating. Since we do not have a full time office staff our mail is reviewed no more than once a day and occasionally it may take two days for us to pick up a letter. In addition, mail even within the Bay Area often takes two days to arrive.

NOTE: We often return messages during the evening (5-6 pm on weekdays) or during the morning (8-9 am on weekdays) so if there is a way of reaching you during one or the other of those two time periods it is really helpful to include that information in your message.