How does your office handle walk-in's

[slawson]

I am working on a busy office in which in a day't time, we will have several walk in's demanding ot be seen, More often than not, it is not an emergency. How does your office handle this matter?

[iris]

When we have walk-in w/o appt's and want to be seen urgently, we have one of the available nurses go up front and triage the pt and assess their need. If it's truly not urgent we give them an appointment for the following day or within that same week. And we also stress that this is not a walk-in clinic, and also stress the importance of calling before walking in.

[laurasc]

With a growl.

Just kidding of course...

Actually it all really depends on whether or not the doctor is in the office yet or if he's with a patient. Our office has one doctor, two receptionists and one nurse (me). I do the assessments.

If the doctor is not in the office or if he's with a patient (or out of earshot) I will generally book an appointment later on and send them away if it's not urgent. Of course, if it's urgent, there's no question, they get seen right away. I have on occasion pulled him out examining room to see a child in distress.

Now, if the doctor sees someone walk in, busy or not, he will not (cannot?) say no...even if it's something minor that can wait. (That's where we growl) He's a truly fabulous doctor but a little too tender hearted for his own good IMO. So yours truly usually ends up being the heavy weight.

Thankfully, we don't get a lot of walk-ins. We do get a lot of people calling in and asking to see the doctor. In that case I will usually triage the call and book accordingly.

Laura

[This message has been edited by laurasc (edited February 15, 2001).]