Welcome back to Urgent Care Unscripted, where we dive into real conversations about health, wellness, and what really goes on behind urgent care. I'm Barbara Ron Alter, I'm the director of operations and business development for AFC Urgent Care in West Haven. And this is Mohammad Zamani. I'm the owner and franchisee of the Urgent Care of West Haven. Today we'll be talking about an interesting topic.
It's about like when, people are already under way or sitting in the urgent care clinic, but have not thought about in advance how to make the best use of your time at the clinic, or how to maximize their visit at the. Absolutely. We see this every day. People come into the clinic, they're in a rush, and today we're going to break it down. How to make things a little bit faster for them. And one of the things we're going to cover today is what to bring and how to prepare for your visit.
We're also going to talk about communication and how to communicate effectively with your provider. And your clinic, and tips on how to make the, the best of your visit make it smoother so you get the most of your visit. And just let's start from the beginning before you have even started. What can you do? You could make an appointment or you could walk in both options that are available typically at all urgent care, especially at our urgent care West Haven.
But making an appointment in advance actually save you some time. You spend less time, filling in the forms at the front desk, and you get to see the provider sooner. And that helps you. That helps the clinic keep, the operation. Yes. It's absolutely. It's a big time saver. Definitely speeds up the process when you come in and all your paperwork is already completed. Obviously, not everybody has the time to do it ahead of time.
So you can definitely come into the clinic and do the paperwork there, but we'll definitely get you in and out way faster if you get that done beforehand. Talking about paperwork, what are the two main, paperwork? That sounds very easy. That's it's your photo ID and your insurance card. Without a photo ID. It could be a physical form of ID, or it could be a digital form of ID, but without the photo ID becomes very difficult to see a patient.
So we ask that you make sure that, before we have stepped into the clinic, you know, you got a digital version of the old and a physical version. And obviously having the insurance card helps out. Yeah. And, the next thing that I just kind of want to point out regarding this visit and making it faster is communication. So one big thing is making sure you're effectively communicating what it is that you need at the time of your visit. Keep in mind that it's an urgent care.
Typically our time is limited, unfortunately. So if you're coming in and you have, you know, a couple of symptoms, you want to make sure you're addressing your most important symptom. First, you want to the one that you want to resolve today.
So if you're coming in with various things like a sore throat, but you also have, you know, your back has been hurting for three months, you might want to address your sore throat first and then you can either touch we can touch on your your back pain later, or you can come in a couple of days later. Or we can schedule follow up to kind of go more into depth on those symptoms. And just expanding on what Barbara just said, about planning ahead.
Like she said, you could come in with many different symptoms or treatment needs. It could be one. It could be multiple. But planning ahead? Definitely. How? Because that keeps the process efficient. That helps the provider plan ahead and save you time. That brings a good example of a patient that came in actually this patient and Barbara can expand more on that. She, wanted to be seen in 45 minutes during her lunch break.
The best thing she could have done is she called us around 11, that, hey, can you accommodate my need? I have to be seen. I have, such and such, concerns, but I only have 45 minutes because she called ahead. We could plan with her. She could plan with us. And she was in and out in 45 minutes. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely not something we can accommodate for every single patient. But if we know ahead of time, we can let you know what to expect.
If it was something that we couldn't accommodate at the time of her visit, we would have told her. Yeah. So transparency. Like she said, it goes both ways. If you communicate to us, then it becomes the, clear communication from both ends. We know what your expectations are and you know what you can do or not. For the time you can afford to spend at the urgent care.
And then we can set up a realistic expectation of when you should come, how long you can expect to receive and when you can actually get out. to make things a little bit faster for the patients too. We make sure we send all of our prescriptions electronically. I know that some providers might still do paper or might call in the prescriptions.
One thing that we like to do is send over the prescriptions directly to the pharmacy, and making sure that is also done effectively and as fast as we possibly can. I think, Muhammad, do you want to go a little bit about some final tips and what else? Yes. So everybody knows it's an urgent care. Right. So you come in here for a few, Covid testing or, you have a fever or you want to do a physical, like a physical or annual physical, all of those things, we can accommodate that.
But then there is a difference between us and and, emergency room. Right. So if you have a chest pain, if you have difficulty breathing or if you have some kind of a sign that's symptomatic of a stroke, this would not be the place you would be best served if you immediately contact, an emergency room or a hospital to get the boxes so you can have some of those. Absolutely. And feel free to call us. We can definitely give you some advice.
We can't obviously give you medical advice over the phone, but if you tell us what your symptoms are, we can best advise you on whether to come in and see us, or if we think that you would be better served at an emergency room. We do understand emergency rooms wait time can be a little bit longer, but when it comes to an urgent care, there could be some circumstances where we are limited to what we can do within our walls. So definitely costs ahead. And let us know what your situation is.
If you are unsure about where to go. To wrap up, I think we want to just talk about, you know, book online big, big, big help for you. Bring your ID and your insurance card, make sure you're focused and direct with your provider. Tell us upfront if you're on a time crunch. Ask if we can, if there's anything we can do and obviously be open and clear with your provider. So communication is key. And with that note on communication, we'll catch you next time.
Until then, subscribe to urgent Care. Crystal, this is Mohamed, and would you like, see you next time. See you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in. And we are at 354 Sawmill Road in West Haven. And come see us anytime you need us.