Refer a patient.
Send a referral to Edvin Telemi, MD, or call the office to coordinate an evaluation and obtain instructions for transferring records.
Coordinate records with the office
The office can confirm which records are needed and how to send them. Have your practice contact information available, along with relevant clinical notes, imaging and reports, prior operative reports when applicable, and referral or insurance requirements.
Please call before sending patient identifiers, clinical summaries, or imaging. The form here is for provider contact details and a high-level reason for referral only; it is not a secure channel for records.
This form isn't a HIPAA-secure channel. Use patient initials only, keep the summary high-level, and send full records through the office.
Referrals Dr. Telemi accepts
Referrals are welcome for evaluation as well as for surgery. If an operation is not the right answer, that is a useful result for your patient, and the reasoning goes back to you in writing.
Minimally invasive & endoscopic
Tubular and endoscopic decompression where the pathology genuinely allows it, rather than as a default.
Motion preservation
Cervical and lumbar disc replacement, and the question of whether fusion can be avoided in a given patient.
Complex & revision
Pseudarthrosis, hardware failure, adjacent segment disease, recurrent stenosis, and deformity correction.
Spine tumors
Metastatic and primary tumors, including intradural and intramedullary disease, planned alongside oncology.
Second opinions are a common reason for referral and are treated as a normal part of practice, not a challenge to the referring physician. See how second opinions are handled, or browse the full conditions library and list of procedures.
Call the office, don't use the form
Web forms are checked during office hours and are not monitored continuously. If your patient has a time-critical presentation, call (586) 803-1220 directly, and send anyone with an acute neurological deficit to an emergency department rather than waiting on an outpatient referral.
- Cauda equina syndrome — saddle anaesthesia, urinary retention, or new bowel or bladder dysfunction
- Metastatic epidural spinal cord compression — known malignancy with new back pain and myelopathic signs
- Spinal epidural abscess — fever, focal spinal tenderness, raised inflammatory markers, or IV drug use
- Cervical or thoracic myelopathy that is progressing, and central cord syndrome after a fall
- Burst fracture or suspected vertebral osteomyelitis and discitis
What makes a referral easy to act on
The office will confirm exactly what is needed, but a referral that arrives with the following can usually be triaged without a second round of requests:
- The specific question you want answered — a surgical opinion, a second opinion, or help interpreting imaging that does not match the examination
- Advanced imaging itself, not only the report. MRI or CT on disc or through an image-sharing link is far more useful than a radiologist's summary alone
- Your examination findings, particularly motor deficits, reflex changes, and gait
- What has already been tried: physical therapy, injections, medication, and how each was tolerated
- Prior operative reports and implant records where the patient has had previous spine surgery
- Insurance and authorisation requirements, which often determine how quickly a patient can actually be seen
Patients can also reach the office themselves; nothing here prevents a self-referral. See requesting an appointment or the office and contact details.