Essentia Health Procedures For A Doctor’s Appointment

A lot of businesses have implemented policy and procedure changes with the COVID-19 pandemic going on.  Hospitals and health clinics of course have probably made some of the more stringent changes.  They need to keep patients, the general public, and of course our valued medical staff as safe as possible.

I had an appointment with my primary care provider this morning.  Nothing crazy, just a mid year check on some health concerns that my doctor likes to monitor more than once a year.  This appointment included lab work to get some blood drawn.  I scheduled my appointment via the My Chart app that Essentia uses and that went well.  When the lab was added they did have to call me though, and let me know about the new procedure with that.

I arrived at the Essentia West Clinic about 15 minutes before my appointment and instead of going in, they have you call a dedicated number to let them know you are there.  Once  you check in that way, they let you go in a dedicated lab entrance.  Masks are mandatory for being in there and they immediately took my temperature with a no contact infrared thermometer.  They then asked the usual COVID-19 questions, making sure that I didn't have any symptoms and that I haven't been in contact with anyone that has been infected.

After that, I was sent to the lab and it was basically the same as always.  Once my blood was drawn they had another route out that I had to follow to exit the clinic.  About an hour later, I had a video chat with my doctor, which I had the option of that or a phone call.  The whole process start to finish went pretty well and was easy enough to figure out.  If that's all it takes to keep health care workers and others safe, it's no problem at all.