Does your office/clinic allow walk-ins to see the nurse?

Specialties Ambulatory

Published

I find myself being called to the front desk 30 times a day for someone who "just wants to talk to a nurse" and oftentimes for a question that the front desk could have answered or a problem they could solve without making me walk all the way up there and interrupting my work. I am curious, does your office just allow patient to walk in and bother you 20+ times a day? No appointment, just walk in and demand a nurse?

I know the office charges for INR fingersticks because of the supplies, same for DM fingersticks or for pregnancy tests or NSTs. They charge for supplies and the service, but not for the nurse's time. However, 99.9999999% of our patients have no insurance or medicaid though so really it's all free.

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

Yes, the patients we see at our facility are primarily Medicaid as well. I'm guessing that it's a CMS thing - nurse time is not billable.

I don't understand why a secretary would call you for a question he or she could handle. Are there major personality issues in your workplace? Toxic employees? Can you schedule a meeting with your supervisor or admin or someone? It sounds to me like a workflow review is needed. I am sorry for what you are dealing with.

i just read back again and you mentioned that there are other nurses who are always on break so you get called. Are you the least senior? Are you bring taken advantage of by nurses, clerical or both? Are the nurses sharing the workload in other ways or is this passive aggression? You may need to decide how or if to confront this behavior.

Telling you that you need to see every patient who asks for a nurse bc " what if they really need a nurse and something bad happens" is asinine and a waste of money. Something bad can happen when Mr Jones comes in with chest pain and you are unavailable because you are doing something that could have been handled by someone non- licensed.

If the patient comes up to the front desk and says "I have a question" or "My medicine" or "I was wondering" the lazy useless secretary automatically says, oh, hold on, you have to talk to the nurse about that" and calls me. I'm like, well who is it? so I can look at the chart and see if there are any notes. She's like "I don't know, just come see" or what do they need? "I dunno, something about medicine or they have a question." It's so pitiful how lazy she is. Doesn't want to be bothered.

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
If the patient comes up to the front desk and says "I have a question" or "My medicine" or "I was wondering" the lazy useless secretary automatically says, oh, hold on, you have to talk to the nurse about that" and calls me. I'm like, well who is it? so I can look at the chart and see if there are any notes. She's like "I don't know, just come see" or what do they need? "I dunno, something about medicine or they have a question." It's so pitiful how lazy she is. Doesn't want to be bothered.

Does your clinic have a discipline or performance improvement policy? This sounds like a training/management issue that should be addressed. That type of behavior would SO not fly at my clinic. All of our clerks (and we usually have 3-4 working simultaneously) are taught to find out what the issue is, find out the patient's information/medical record number, and then direct it to the appropriate person. 75% of the time, it's a simple issue that can be handled by the clerks.

It seems to me that this is an issue that should be addressed to/by your manager.

Unfortunately I think my manager is on the way out too, none of the upper management is happy with her because she has no ability to crack down on bad behavior and lets crazy stuff happen with no discipline. :/

Specializes in nursing education.

Let me fix this for you...how about FORTUNATELY your manager is on her way out! :cat:

Unfortunately I think my manager is on the way out too, none of the upper management is happy with her because she has no ability to crack down on bad behavior and lets crazy stuff happen with no discipline. :/

LOL well I guess you're right haha

But you know, there are situations that have been in place a long time which can be very difficult to change, especially if there is no support from those you report to. I'm not one to give up but it can be tough to change a culture if you are the only one who wants to do so. I had a great deal of dissent when we changed some workflow but I had the support of the nursing supervisor and most of the docs.

Hang in there and learn everything you can now if you decide to leave.

That's so true and very good advice. Thank you!

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