Anyone else try urgent care and hate it?

I don't hate the job but I hate how the Medicaid system has evolved into being abused by the parents and by the facility.

The abuse is rampant and there is no oversight regarding the insured or no oversight regarding the facility laughing all the way to the bank as a result. That's what I hate.

Appointments can be hard to get at primary care, especially in areas with low medicaid reimbursement rates. Hardly anyone will take medicaid so they doctors that do are beyond capacity. Or they might be able to reach UC on a bus line, but walk a long ways to get to that PCP. Or they might have a chaotic life that makes it very hard for them to make plans ahead of time. It's hard to schedule a doctors appt 4 days out when you and your kids are couch surfing, or you have to find someone to drive you, or you don't get any PTO and cant afford to miss any hours at your min wage job.

Sure, there is cases of abuse- i've seen it (lying about symptoms so you can get a "picture of your baby" at 3am, because your first prenatal appointment isn't till next week. With the gall to just come out and say it afterwards too, like it was funny).

But mostly it is ignorance and difficulty accessing primary care clinics. Many people don't understand the costs involved, or the difference between ED/UC/PCP. I have had more than one patient report to me that their PCP is one of the local urgent care sites. They didn't know.

So yeah. Medicaid needs some tweaking, and our entire healthcare approach needs an overhaul. Lets not blame the parents/patients for a broken system though- parents who over-utilize urgent care are likely to have difficult lives and we should assume the best intentions from them, even when they don't listen to our counseling.

Maybe you can partner with a PCP/pedi who is close to your location and takes medicaid. Any patient who needs it can have a follow up booked with them before they leave UC.

Explain why a PCP will be better able to assess and treat whatever issue they are presenting with, and offer to facilitate it for them right then and there. This is astronomically more effective than just passing them a phone number.

Don't try to guilt them by focusing on how expensive this type of care is.

Some people won't ever hear you no matter how many times you say it, but many people will be grateful you helped them.

I am so ready for my transfer out of urgent care! Was originally med/Surg and was looking for 'greener pastures' and thought outpatient would be at a more calmer pace- WRONG! In hindsight, I miss just have 6 patients I knew about like the back of my hand versus having 80-100 come thru the clinic and doing non-stop mundane tasks like swapping noses, taking vitals, giving ibuprofen/Tylenol, etc. In my experience the short staffing is worse in urgent care than it was on my old inpatient unit. You'd be mistake  thinking that Summer would ease the influx of patients into the clinic-its never ending. Cannot wait to get out!