how many patients?

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So at this family practice clinic, we are open from 8-6:30 with a 1.5 hr break for lunch. And see about 40 patients within that time frame. That equals roughly 4-5 patients an hour. Is this typical? About how many patients do you see a day?

This is neat hearing how the patient flow works in different settings. I've always been intrigued by healthcare in correctional facilities.

I see about 6-10 patients/day at an outpatient HIV clinic. Sometimes it's slow when the patients don't show up, or crazy when there are tons of walk-ins who are really sick. We also have an urgent care type area where we stabilize and sometimes transfer patients to the hospital. The patient population is low income with a lot of social issues and mental health co-morbidities... they would not respond well to the 15 minute visit.

Sometimes it takes awhile for the patient to share what is really going on, or for me to identify all the social services they need. Sometimes they are just plain sick, or taking their meds all wrong, and I could not do that in 15 minutes. Sometimes the patient is telling a story that needs to be told. I'm so glad I don't have to cut them off when that happens.

The grants we receive from Ryan White allow us the luxury of not focusing on billing. I'm not going to be filthy rich doing this vs. say, private practice cardiology, but that's not why I chose nursing in the first place.

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Specializes in Psychiatric NP.

Viva, I agree! I'm not hoping to be filthy rich either. It's just difficult to find a place that has that kind of funding. I would love the luxury of being able to spend more time with patients and less time worrying about coding and billing (especially as a new grad FNP this would be real difficult). How did you come about finding your workplace?

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I joined Assoc. of Nurses in AIDS Care and a lot of nurses in the local chapter worked at this clinic. I heard good things, so I chose to do clinical there. Loved it so much I started pursuing employment even before I graduated. If you're passionate about something start networking. You'll hear of the good places (and not so good places!) to work.

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Viva, I agree! I'm not hoping to be filthy rich either. It's just difficult to find a place that has that kind of funding. I would love the luxury of being able to spend more time with patients and less time worrying about coding and billing (especially as a new grad FNP this would be real difficult). How did you come about finding your workplace?

I am doing locum tenens so I am only contracted for a specific time frame, here for example for the semester. These can often lead to permanent jobs, but the nice thing is if you don't like it, you're only there a few months. I happen to LOVE where I am and they offered a chance at a full-time perm.day job, but it is REALLY far away from my family.... (and all the people that work there tell me the pay is not very good) I get paid pretty decent doing locums plus the housing benefit, and I am trying to pay off loans, so i DO in some sense have a standard of pay that I expect/want to make, but I won't settle for a job that i don't like or not good work environment, not worth it.

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The expectations around here is anywhere between 20-30 patients for a typical office-hours day in FP or IM.

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Specializes in ICU, M/S, PICU, Hospice, FNP school.

:yeah:awesome ideas for providing visuals for teaching! Love it!

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