Sick students should be relieved. Just last year, Duke students in need of specialized medical attention had to wait up to four months for an appointment with a physician at Duke University Medical Center. Now the Private Diagnostic Clinic, a group of doctors at the Medical Center that provides patient care in more than 40 specialties, has included Duke Student Health in its referral group, so all students should be able to obtain appointments within a week.
“The seven-day access is an initiative that the PDC took on last December trying to improve appointment availability for students,” said Jean Hanson, director of administrative services at Duke Student Health.
The new policy could even save Duke students money. Each student pays $262 a year to cover acute care for sickness and injuries, physical exams, sexually transmitted disease testing and a variety of other services. In the past students have had to spend additional money to schedule an appointment on their own. While students are still responsible for all specialist expenses, going to Duke Student Health for a referral could save them money.
“It's good that the University's being proactive and helping its students,” freshman Brandon Fuqua said. “Students can’t learn if they have serious illnesses so it is of utmost pertinence for the University to take action in favor of its students’ health.”
Before this new plan, students were referred out to the community and even to the hospital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in order to get quicker appointments. One of the main priorities of Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and CEO and president of Duke University Health System, is to improve customer care in patient access to appointments.
“Getting referrals have been a problem for quite a long period of time—and last November, the issue was brought up via a report,” Hanson said.
Not every specialty has the ability to provide seven-day access immediately, said Hanson, but it is a work in progress. Currently the orthopedics, general surgery, cardiology, ear, nose and throat, pediatric cardiology and urology departments honor the seven-day policy.
“Our board of directors have approved to do this and we have sent out a request to all of our division chiefs asking them to work through how they are going to work out the guarantee,” said Bill Gable, administrative director of ambulatory operations for PDC.
Within the next six months to a year, the referral plan will be put forward across all 40 of the specialties. While this roll-out is under way, Duke Student Health will report back to PDC to track the progress of the referrals.
“The most important message here is that it is a work in progress,” Hanson said. “The system isn’t perfect but everyone’s working on it.”
The Student Health Center is supported by the Division of Student Affairs along with the Department of Community and Family Medicine. The Duke Student Health Clinic, the Travel Clinic and Office of Health Promotion are located in the Duke Student Health Center on Flowers Drive. In addition, the East Campus Wellness Clinic and Student Health Physical Therapy also provide medical care.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.