Premier Pediatrics firmly believes in the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent serious and life-threatening diseases in our patients and to avoid the spread of such illnesses in our community.  As pediatricians, we firmly believe that vaccines are safe.  We believe that public policies excluding unvaccinated children from school are appropriate in the school setting and must be a part of our office policy as well.  We care for some complicated children at Premier Pediatrics; children for whom a vaccine-preventable illness could result in death. We feel it is our duty as pediatricians to protect ALL of our patients to the best of our ability.

At Premier Pediatrics, we expect parents to immunize according to the schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and which is listed on our website for your review(SEE BELOW). Effective May 1, 2019 we will no longer accept new patients who refuse all vaccines.  If parents have the intent to be fully immunized via an alternative schedule, we will work with those families as long as the following criteria are met:

1. Immunizations are initiated by 4 months of age
2. By 18 months of age, the child has received all vaccines that are required for daycare entry by the state of Florida for children ages 2 months to 15 months. 
3. By 5 years of age, the child has received all vaccines that are required for elementary school entry by the state of Florida. 
4. By 13 years of age, the child has received Tdap and meningitis vaccine. 

Failure to meet our basic vaccination goals as listed above could result in dismissal from our practice and we will ask you to find another office that shares your views.  We do not keep a list of such providers nor would we recommend any such provider. Once again, we do not recommend that you follow any schedule other than the vaccine schedule that is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and failure to follow this recommended schedule places your child and other children at risk of contracting a vaccine-preventable illness.

We recognize that vaccinations for children may be a very emotional subject for some parents.  The goal of this policy is to have the healthiest patients and community and not to cause parental distress. There are many websites that contain misinformation about vaccines.  We have done the research and reviewed all the controversies and hold firmly that vaccinating children may be the single most important health-promoting intervention that we perform as pediatricians.  We encourage you to discuss your concerns with us. Thank you for trusting us with the care of your child.