In an effort to make health care services more accessible to their patients, Eastern Plumas Health Care now offers walk-in appointments in its Graeagle and Portola clinics. That’s good news when you have a child with a splinter in his throat, as happened the first day that Graeagle put out its Walk-Ins Welcome sign. According to Clinic Director, Mark Schweyer, “We’re very sensitive to meeting the needs of our community. We’re prepared to meet unfortunate circumstances that come up where our patients don’t have an appointment, but can’t wait to get care.”

While EPHC has been offering the walk-in service for some time, it clearly wasn’t on the radar for patients. Graeagle Clinic reported that the first day the sign went out they had 10 walk-in appointments.

EPHC’s clinics are working behind the scenes to adjust schedules so that patients who have scheduled appointments don’t experience significantly longer wait times because of the walk-in service. According to CEO Tom Hayes, they’re building in break times during the day at Graeagle clinic so the excess load can expand into these times without causing a back up of patients. Further, they’re working with staff to assess how much time each patient’s appointment is likely to take when the appointment is made, rather than assuming most patients can be treated in a short, fifteen minute, time slot.

In addition to walk-ins, the Portola Clinic offers extended hours: Mon. and Wed., 8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., and Sat. 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. This service was implemented by Hayes in the hopes that residents who work during the day will find it easier to get necessary health care services for themselves and their families without taking time off work. The service has been very successful, with every Saturday seeing a full schedule of patients, and evening hours experiencing a steady flow, as well.

Finally, the service that has generated the most community interest is EPHC’s Portola hospital urgent care annex. Emergency room patients are assessed by the ER physician, and if their illness is deemed non-emergency, they’ll only be billed for a clinic visit. The hospital wants patients who have urgent issues after hours and on weekends to get necessary care rather than stay home and suffer.

All of these services are aimed at making EPHC’s hospital and clinics more patient friendly, helping community members get the care they need when they need it most.