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?

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Specializes in nursing education.

I kind of get the opposite- people are supposed to come in for a BP check or a diabetes nurse visit, and then they no-show! Makes me sad.

But no, we have a sign on the door that says no walk ins. Our policy is that a patient is welcome to wait in the lobby and will be taken in the order that they would be if they had called; usually they choose to leave and get the call. Otherwise we would be swamped about forms, refills, etc.

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We see over 200 patients a day and have over 30k patients in our system. I'm constantly running! I want to tell the front desk to tell the patient to call in and leave a message and I'll get back to them when I have a second! lol

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And if I am with a patient in the back or busy doing something important and I don't come to the front desk fast enough they just keep calling me. NURSE TO THE FRONT DESK. It's so annoying I want to scream at them!

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Specializes in nursing education.
And if I am with a patient in the back or busy doing something important and I don't come to the front desk fast enough they just keep calling me. NURSE TO THE FRONT DESK. It's so annoying I want to scream at them!

At our clinic that means either chest pain, wheezing, or the like. Somehow you have to stop letting the system abuse you.

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Your office is paying a nurse to do things that clerical/front desk people can do? That is a waste of $$. Maybe you can write up and discuss some workflow adjustments with admin. I would think most of those paying the salaries would be interested in delegation of the non-professional tasks to lower paid employees.

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The management just says "well, what if the patient does nee a nurse? We can't have the front desk triage and what if they make a mistake and something bad happens to a patient?" Well, the front desk should know better than to give medical advice and if they need help that bad go to the ER is my sentiment.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

We have set up a triage line that is answered by a nurse. Actually we have three triage lines that are answered by 6 nurses due to our huge number of patients. We have almost zero walk ins.

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Specializes in nursing education.

Bluelight, what other staff work in your clinic? Are you the only nurse?

Also what kinds of things are they calling you for? Are they actual health related questions, complaints, or other?

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

Officially, no. Unofficially, yes. Mainly because I have let the clerical staff know that I am available to the public, even without an appointment. Part of it is because it's an OB/Gyn office, so if there is a pregnant woman who is possibly having an emergency of some sort, I would like to know about it so I can triage her appropriately. Most of the time it's women who want their results for STI testing, and that just takes a couple minutes so it's generally not a huge deal. I would say I get interrupted 3-4 times a day with walk-ins.

We also have a voicemail line that I check several times a day, and I generally get about 10-15 calls per day on that.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
The management just says "well, what if the patient does nee a nurse? We can't have the front desk triage and what if they make a mistake and something bad happens to a patient?" Well, the front desk should know better than to give medical advice and if they need help that bad go to the ER is my sentiment.

They're not triaging, though. They're simply asking the person what they need. If it's clinical or medical, get a nurse. If it's clerical, paperwork-related, refill related, appointment related, the clerical staff can deal with it.

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There are other nurses but honestly, they're all pretty lazy and always on "break" so I am always the one who gets called. We have a triage phone line but the call volume is soo heavy that it's almost faster to come in than wait on the phone. :(

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