Corvette Community Clinic
POLICY
DEPT/OPS AREA: Front
Desk/Reception
POLICY NAME:
POLICY NUMBER: OP 601
PATIENT ACCESS DURING
OFFICE HOURS
REVISED DATE(S): March 15, 2012
APPROVAL DATE(S): March 31,
DATE(S) REVIEWED: February
APPROVED BY:
2012
16, 2012
EFFECTIVE (ORIGINAL) DATE:
March 1, 2009
Board of Directors
as reflected in BOD Minutes
(3/31/12)
APPLIES TO: ALL
POLICY STATEMENT: It is the policy of Corvette Community Clinic to be as flexible as possible in
meeting appointment preferences and needs of new and established patients during office hours.
RESPONSIBILITY: The CCC Board of Directors (BOD) has the ultimate responsibility for the
approval of this. The BOD delegates policy compliance to the COO. The COO delegates oversight of
policy implementation to the Director of Administrative Services who delegates day to day management
in compliance with this policy to the Front Desk Supervisor or delegate to ensure implementation of the
standards outlined below.
KEY TERMS:
Clinical Advice: Advice is the giving of a formal professional opinion regarding what a specific
individual should or should not do to restore or preserve health.
IMPLEMENTATION:
PCMH 1A: Factor 1
Same Day Access: Patients can access CCC physicians and the care team for routine and urgent care needs
by office visit, be telephone and through secure electronic messaging. CCC reserves “open slots” in each
clinical session to preserve capacity to accommodate same day access needs (triage) and preferences.
Although CCC has a schedule for routine appointments, patients do have open access and may request a same
day appointment
Triage and Same Day Appointments: Same day appointments are scheduled based on the triage protocols.
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Emergent –conditions required immediate medical evaluation and referred for emergency services.
Sick – Urgent - conditions determined to require medical evaluation within 2 hours and referred to a
triage clinician.
Sick- Non Urgent - conditions determined by the triage clinician to require medical evaluation within
4 hours.
Routine – conditions determined to be routine in nature not requiring medical evaluation in a specific
OP 601 Patient Access During Office Hours FINAL
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DEPT/OPS AREA: Front
Desk/Reception
POLICY NAME: PATIENT
ACCESS DURING OFFICE HOURS
POLICY NUMBER: OP 601
Corvette Community Clinic
time frame. Patients seeking routine care will be allowed same day access when available or
appointed with the next available appointment.
The triage clinician must be either a physician, mid level provider or a licensed nurse or medical assistant.
 A schedule will be kept maintaining the availability of daily appointments to allow same day
appointments and will be updated as the appointments are filled.
 The same criteria apply whether the call is from the patient or family member.
 In the event, the same day appointments are no longer available, the triage clinician will be informed
and may direct the patient to be seen the following day, or referred to an urgent care center or an
emergency room.
Scheduling with the Personal Physician: Patients are provided with continuous and comprehensive health
care at Corvette Community Clinic Center (CCC). CCC’s goal is to identify a personal physician at the point
of new patient visit, document this in the electronic medical record and schedule patients to see their personal
family physician as first priority. It may not always be possible for a patient to be scheduled with his/her
personal family physician however; patients are scheduled with a provider at CCC based on need in these
situations.
 Front office staff and nursing identify each patient with their personal family physician and offer an
appointment with that physician.
 Schedule patients with another provider only upon patient’s request or when the urgent nature of the
appointment requires that the patient needs to be seen prior to the availability of his/her primary care
physician (PCP).
 The reason for scheduling a patient with a provider other than his/her primary care physician is
documented in the medical record.
PCMH 1A: Factor 2
Clinical Advice by Telephone: All patients have access to clinical advice by telephone during office hours
using CCC’s call center. Call Center staff is trained to determine the urgency of a call and respond using
decision-support logic and scripted algorithms allowing prompt identification of a caller’s needs and
preferences. Responses include routing urgent situations to clinical staff for patient triage and/or routing
routine calls to the message center.
Telephone Response Timeliness Standards:
 Clinical staff returns calls to patients for clinical advice within 24 hours of the call.
 During office hours urgent calls are returned by the triage clinician within 1 hour and after hours calls
are returned within 1 hour by the on call provider. This will allow our patients to have available
clinician support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
 Medicine refills and paperwork requests are forwarded to the responsible provider/staff within 1
PCMH 1A: Factor 4
business day.
 Time of call, patient complaint, and advice given is documented in the EHR and sent to the PCP.
Secure Electronic Messaging ( Website and Patient Portal)
OP 601 Patient Access During Office Hours
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PCMH 1A: Factor 3
DEPT/OPS AREA: Front
Desk/Reception
POLICY NAME: PATIENT
ACCESS DURING OFFICE HOURS
POLICY NUMBER: OP 601
Corvette Community Clinic
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CCC patients have access to CCC’s interactive website at www.ccc.com. The website is publically
accessible to general information and with a patient registration login patients can send and receive
messages.
This interactive website also allows patients to perform pre-visit planning such as complete necessary
paperwork ahead of time, obtain reports of completed services, request medicine refills and
coordinate laboratory studies.
Time of message, reason for the message, and clinical advice given is scanned or electronically
transferred to the electronic health record.
PCMH 1A: Factor 4
Secure Messaging Response Timeliness Standards
 Appropriate staff will respond to secure e-mails within 24 hours.
 A designated staff member monitors the interaction on the web site on a weekly basis.
DOCUMENTATION/MONITORING:
Patient Appointment Access: Spot checks, for a one week interval, performed quarterly to document
our goal that our patients are scheduled according to need > 90% of the time and by preference > 80%.
Telephone Response: Spot checks performed quarterly document timeliness standards are met 85% of
the time.
Secure Electronic Messaging Response: 85% Reports are reviewed monthly
All above reports are presented to the QI Committee.
REFERENCES:
2011 NCQA PCMH Standard 1 A Factors 1-4
OP 601 Patient Access During Office Hours
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