Walk-in Clinic | Alaska Native Medical Center

Walk-in Clinic | Alaska Native Medical Center

Spotlight: ANTHC's Walk-in Clinic

The ANMC Walk-in Clinic serves patients with non-emergency health needs.

Waiting in the emergency room to be seen for a cold or a sprained ankle can take a long time, and it can cost health care systems more than seeing patients in other settings. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) has come up with another option on the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) campus—a walk-in clinic. The ANMC Walk-in Clinic has been open for 1 year, and the number of patients it sees continues to grow, said Cindy Wilson, ANTHC's director of multi-specialty clinics.

The Walk-in Clinic primarily serves patients who live in villages outside the Anchorage Service Unit, but who are visiting Anchorage. The clinic helps people who need immediate, non-emergency care for things like colds and coughs, sprains and strains, sinus and ear infections, and medication refills.

"I think the ANMC Walk-in Clinic is an excellent example of trying to keep health care costs down, as well as offering an alternative to utilizing the ER, in a more congenial atmosphere, which increases patient satisfaction. It also lowers the load on the emergency room."

— Cindy Wilson, RN, MPH, MSN; Director of Multi-Specialty Clinics, ANTHC

In its first year, the Walk-in Clinic saw almost 7,800 patients. Its clientele has steadily grown as more people hear from friends and family about what the clinic offers. A key benefit of the clinic is generally shorter wait times than the emergency room. Wilson said, on average, people wait 12 minutes to get into a room and another 12 minutes to see a provider. The average time from when a patient arrives to when they are discharged is 54 minutes. Wilson said the goal is to always keep that time under 60 minutes.

Patients at the Walk-in Clinic are covered by a variety of insurance and funding sources, including Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and Indian Health Service. The clinic is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.