[Shopgirl_Stefany]

I need to have my doctor's signature notarized for the medical clearance forms. How have any of you handled this? Do I hire a traveling notary??

[Lissa]

Some doctor's offices have a notary. We were fortunate and ours did. Call first to find out if they have a notary on staff.

[prechrswife]

We had a friend who was a notary. She met us at the doctor's office and notarized the forms for us.

[KarenInCa]

We asked our Dr office first, and then had to hire a traveling notary. So, we used the same notary for local police reports, and DHs work because his HR person would not go to Mailboxes Etc with him. However, at my work, my manager was able to go out with me to Mailboxes Etc, and I bought her lunch.
As for the Dr office, we had to make an appointment with the Dr, like a normal appointment, and all of us were in the room together signing, and passing papers. Fortunately, for the renewal, nothing needs to be notarized.

[amyfk]

This was one area that gave me a royal headache!
I did different things.
One of my girlfriends is a public librarian and was required to be a licensed notary. One time she was kind enough to meet me at the doctor's office in the morning before work to notarize signatures.
For the other times(Russia makes you update your medicals every 3 mo.--nice!) I went through my local phone book. One of the privately owned mailboxes stores in the area had a woman who had the notary certification and was willing to travel. She was very nice and the fee was reasonable. So you may want to go down your yellow pages and see if anyone is willing to travel. You may be pleasantly surprised.
I know this is a stressful thing. Best of luck.
Amy K, NJ

[kff]

We called the ups store, they did for free for us since it was for an adoption!

[KarenInCa]

WOW kff, that was sooo cool!

[richard p.]

We used the same traveling notary for all of our documents. Remember (at least when we did it) that the notary's seal has to be authenticated so the fewer the better.

[mom3boys]

Richard, does it make a difference how many different notaries you use? I know that we had the lady at our bank notarize much of our stuff. When it came time to authenticate everything it didn't matter how many papers were done by each notary. Every document was treated individually.

[sak9645]

Most doctors have hospital privileges, and virtually all hospitals have notaries, often in the administrative or business offices. Unless your doctor makes rounds at very early or late hours, he/she may be able to get your documents notarized while he/she is there.

If your physician practices in a medical building with other doctors, you can almost always find a notary in one of the other offices. Ask around. You may find that your doctor will be willing to stop at the other doctor's office on his/her way to lunch and sign the papers. Or the doctor who has a notary may be willing to let his/her notary pop in to your doctor's office to take care of the documents.

If you've known a doctor for a long time, and he/she is really supportive of your adoption, he/she may well agree to take your paperwork to a notary he/she knows, outside of the building.

If your doctor is in a large building that houses other types of business, be aware that you can often find notaries in a bank, real estate office, title company, law office, insurance company, brokerage, etc. -- virtually any type of business involving large amounts of paperwork. You may be able to have the doctor stop in at one of these offices, which you have identified, on his/her lunch break, or the notary in one of these offices may be willing to come to the doctor's office, especially if he/she knows it's for adoption paperwork.

Traveling notaries do exist, and you certainly can use them, but they are usually more expensive than other notaries. You may find one in your telephone directory. If not, call a local mortgage company or real estate company.

Some states allow real estate closings to be done by traveling notaries -- I actually had one done by a notary who came to my home, though I much prefer the old fashioned way of going to a title company, where a lawyer is present. Traveling notaries who do closings often don't advertise to the general public, since they are hired primarily by mortgage and real estate firms.

Sharon

[richard p.]

Sorry for the confussion- but my situation was a little different for my first. I had everthing done in New York City. The city has 5 Boroughs and each Borough is like a mini city. I had to go to 2 different city halls because 1 notary was not registered in Manhattan (the main Borough). I guess most cities are "normal".

[KarenInCa]

Originally Posted by sak9645

Most doctors have hospital privileges, and virtually all hospitals have notaries, often in the administrative or business offices. Unless your doctor makes rounds at very early or late hours, he/she may be able to get your documents notarized while he/she is there.

If your physician practices in a medical building with other doctors, you can almost always find a notary in one of the other offices. Ask around. You may find that your doctor will be willing to stop at the other doctor's office on his/her way to lunch and sign the papers. Or the doctor who has a notary may be willing to let his/her notary pop in to your doctor's office to take care of the documents.

If you've known a doctor for a long time, and he/she is really supportive of your adoption, he/she may well agree to take your paperwork to a notary he/she knows, outside of the building.

If your doctor is in a large building that houses other types of business, be aware that you can often find notaries in a bank, real estate office, title company, law office, insurance company, brokerage, etc. -- virtually any type of business involving large amounts of paperwork. You may be able to have the doctor stop in at one of these offices, which you have identified, on his/her lunch break, or the notary in one of these offices may be willing to come to the doctor's office, especially if he/she knows it's for adoption paperwork.

Traveling notaries do exist, and you certainly can use them, but they are usually more expensive than other notaries. You may find one in your telephone directory. If not, call a local mortgage company or real estate company.

Some states allow real estate closings to be done by traveling notaries -- I actually had one done by a notary who came to my home, though I much prefer the old fashioned way of going to a title company, where a lawyer is present. Traveling notaries who do closings often don't advertise to the general public, since they are hired primarily by mortgage and real estate firms.

Sharon

Sharon, I wish any of this were true in our case.
We used a very well known university/hospital (With dr offices in our town). I called the university/hospital directly, and they did not have a notary on site, and then I called our doctor's office (shared with 5-6 other doctors and staff), and there were none to be found there either.
It became much simpler for us to go to his office with our own traveling notary. And from what I recall, all of us (Dr, DH, myself) had to sign the papers, so it became even more complex than just having the dr take them somewhere on his lunch time....and relying on that to happen.
Sometimes the loss of a headache is worth the cost of a traveling notary. LOL even with that, it was difficult making an appointment with the info we gave to the receptionist.
We told our traveling notary that we wanted her for both physicals, and for DHs work, so her price was only as much as a regular notary.
We did find out after the fact, that our local adoption agency will notarize anything for us that needs to be notarized (if it was only for DH and myself) all we had to do was take the documents to our local adoption agency office. (At least we knew this info for our second adoption)

[karla-k]

I had heard that it was easier to use as few notaries as possible, really all it meant to us was that we had to fill out a certification request for each different notary. I had the application in a word document and just had to insert a different name and commission expiration date for each one. It was not that big of a deal really.

My husband works at a hospital who keeps a notary on staff. She is basically the "on call" notary for anyone in the hospital: patients, staff, whoever. She was also very kind to go to my DH's doctor's office and notarize his medical form. My doctor has a notary in his office. The rest of our forms we brought to her and did them all in one sitting. She charged no fee since her notary registration fee is paid by the hospital and she is on the clock when she is on notary duty

karla

[jessibird]

Our doctor's office has a notary on staff, however, if they didn't the head SW at our agency is a notary. She said as long as the doctor writes a prescription giving her permission to notorize it (that way she can ocmpare signatures), then she could just notorize it for us.

[Weluv2swim]

Our doctor's office doesn't have a notary but they directed us to a local law firm in town that handles all their contracts and legal issues. After our medicals were done I took the paper work over there and they notarized everything. They are familiar with each physician's signatures, however messy they might be...

Good luck! This was always a big concern of mine, too!