First, I am not the only one to be so confused by the appt situation with Immediate Care. When one reads: "Advocate Medical Group Immediate Care Center Chicago Clark Street Current time in waiting room: 25 minutes The current wait time is the average time you'd spend in the waiting room if you arrived at the clinic now. During your visit, you may wait additional time to see a provider, complete tests or other steps. Wait times and the order in which patients are seen can change based on the number of patients and severity of their care needs." -One believes this. There is no way to schedule online or on the phone, so you assume you go and show up and it might be 25+ minutes wait time according to this message at this moment.  HOWEVER this is ABSOLUTELY MISLEADING (LIE?) I got there at 11 am, prepared to wait 55 minutes as was stated in LiveWell. I paid for 2 hours of parking. The PSR said, 'oh no, "they" put that in there so people won't show up. You need an appointment. The next appointment is 3:20 today."  I took the appointment and told her I would wait 2 hours just in case there was an opening/no show/cancellation, as I was very sick and was not up to getting back in the car, driving home, then driving back. She reassured me that she would let the clinical staff know I was waiting.  so I sat in the waiting area by registration, spreading all my germs, for 2 hours. During that time, I overheard 3 conversations between PSRs and patients coming in for Immediate Care..  I was eerily similar to the conversation I had when I first checked in!  They, too, thought they were going to check in and wait. 2 of them mentioned LiveWell app and the waiting time stated in the app, etc.!! --  I got up to leave and checked in with the PSR, telling her I was going to come back at 3:20 for my appointment. She said, 'oh, let me see if there were any cancellations or no shows' (what? NOW she's checking??).  At any rate, there weren't any, so I actually went to work (I work at Adv IMMC in IT) and went back for my appointment. There was NO waiting time. My appointment, as always, was fine.  They ran strep and covid/flu/rsv tests and said I could wait in the room for 30 min for the results.  I said - "I don't want to take up a waiting room and make other patients wait" - they said it was fine, there no one waiting. This appointment scheduling/nonscheduling(??) needs to get straightened out. As an Advocate staff person, I was embarrassed by this mismanagement and misleading information to our patients. I do not understand only making appointments IN PERSON for several hours away, or like me, having to wait in the waiting room for hours, spreading germs to others.  There were many elderly and probably frail people in the waiting area, I felt terrible that I was potentially exposing them to my illness (turns out it was a virus). By the way, because I work in the hospital, having to go onto the patient floors, I was concerned about potentially spreading covid or rsv, or flu to patients, clinical staff, or staff within my department.  I do not understand why Advocate doesn't cover testing staff when they are ill.  That seems to be negligent. As an employee, I don't want to spend my PTO being sick, if I can work through the illness, I will. And that may mean spreading the illness.  But I am not so careless, so I went to get tested and I will not go into patient rooms until I am better/past the contagious phase. Please follow up with me on the Immediate Care appointment mess, I'd be interested to understand the reasoning behind it.  I've been a clinic manager before and I wouldn't dream of misleading or misinforming patients on purpose nor instructing staff to say "they don't people to show up".   I'm cringing. Andrea Skillman, Sr Bus Analyst, IT Advocate IMMC Phone 773-296-7753
IC Clark