Fort Collins Clinic Network Adds Same-Day Primary Care

Foothills Family Medicine, a Fort Collins clinic network with several locations, has introduced dedicated same-day appointment slots for primary care visits, addressing growing patient frustration with wait times that had stretched to several weeks for routine, non-urgent appointments.

Clinic operations director Wendell Marsh says the same-day slots were carved out specifically from existing physician schedules, requiring careful scheduling adjustments to reserve capacity without simply shifting the wait time problem onto other appointment types. "We didn't want to solve same-day access by making routine follow-up care harder to schedule," Marsh said. "It required rethinking how we structure the whole daily schedule."

Restructuring Scheduling to Balance Competing Needs

Each clinic location now reserves a set number of same-day slots that open each morning, distinct from the standard advance-scheduled appointment system used for routine follow-up and preventive care visits. Marsh says this dual scheduling system required significant staff training and adjustment, since front-desk staff needed clear protocols for determining which patient needs were appropriate for same-day slots versus scheduled appointments.

The clinic network also expanded phone and online triage capacity, helping patients determine whether their concern warranted a same-day visit, a scheduled routine appointment, or urgent care or emergency room care instead, depending on symptom severity.

Early Results and Patient Response

Patient satisfaction survey data collected since the same-day program launched shows a notable improvement in patient satisfaction specifically related to appointment access, according to clinic officials, though they note that scheduled appointment wait times for routine care have not worsened as a result of the same-day slot allocation. Clinic officials attribute this to careful capacity planning rather than the same-day slots coming entirely at the expense of other appointment types.

The clinic network says it's considering expanding the same-day appointment model to additional service lines beyond primary care, based on the strong patient response to the initial program, though officials note that not every specialty has the scheduling flexibility that made the primary care same-day model feasible.