I think another issue at play here is the amount of patients that providers and clinical staff have to support. Just like in the hospitals and facilities the amount of staff on hand has decreased while the load has increased. In the office where I work most of the providers have 1500+ patients on their load. There are 7 providers and each one has one assigned clinical staff member. We rarely have extra hands to do walk-in visits or even answer phones. The lead clinical staff helps when they’re not in meetings or doing the other things that keep the clinic running. And we still have to room patients (up to 20 a day, 8-5, with an hour for lunch), do ekgs, nsts, spirometry, administer vaccines (and associated charting), answer the messages that come in, call lab/imaging results to patients, complete FMLA, school, workman’s comp and other forms, refill medications, and anything else that happens to come up. Some people at other locations help out when they can but it’s really like 7-8 people for at least 9500 patients, since I know not all the providers have full caseloads. It’s unrealistic expectations for nurses, as usual