How Mederi Urgent Care Cut Check-In Times by 50% with Solv

Case Studies / How Mederi Urgent Care Cut Check-In Times by 50% with Solv /

Topics

Patient ExperienceOperational Efficiency

Challenge

Mederi Urgent Care operates four clinics and aims to deliver a patient experience that feels fast, personal, and low-friction from the moment someone walks in. But its front-desk workflow was getting in the way.

Mederi runs on athena EHR and had been using its native check-in and registration workflow. For an urgent care business built around speed, that process was too slow and too difficult for patients to navigate.

"Our average wait time or check-in process was around 20 minutes. It was not easy for older patients to navigate," said Serj Sarkisian, Clinic Manager, Mederi Urgent Care

Some patients didn't make it through at all.

"I've had people walk out midway through our old check-in process because it was so difficult to get through."

The operational cost showed up during peak season. Staff couldn’t register multiple patients at once. If one chart was open, the front desk had to finish that patient before starting the next, turning check-in into a one-at-a-time process.

"September through December is high-volume flu season. We couldn’t check multiple people in at the same time if we had one patient's chart open to set up their profile. So we had to have people wait until it was their turn to start the check-in process."

That kind of bottleneck frustrated patients. It also meant the desk could only see so many people in a day, no matter how busy it got.

"I've had people walk out midway through our old check-in process because it was so difficult to get through."

- Serj Sarkisian, Clinic Manager, Mederi Urgent Care

Solution

Mederi moved check-in, scheduling, and insurance eligibility to Solv, which integrates into athena.

Patients scan a QR code to check themselves in from their phone. If they haven't uploaded insurance yet, they snap a photo of their card and Solv's AI Optical Character Recognition (OCR) pulls the details automatically, no typing required. The rest of their intake happens digitally too, and that information flows straight into Solv and athena with no manual data entry on staff's end. The moment a patient checks in, Solv also runs real-time eligibility in the background, verifying coverage and confirming in-network status before the patient ever reaches the front desk.

Because registration happens on the patient's own phone rather than at the front-desk, multiple patients can check in at the same time. Once a patient is registered, Solv's AI queue adjusts dynamically, so staff can call patients back based on readiness.

"Patients can move through check-in faster, while our team makes sure those with more urgent needs are prioritized.”

“Patients can move through check-in faster, while our team makes sure those with more urgent needs are prioritized.”

- Serj Sarkisian, Clinic Manager, Mederi Urgent Care

Results

Front desk staff: less training and more coverage across sites

One of the clearest wins was how little training Solv required. Mederi didn't need to build a formal training program around it; staff were able to pick it up quickly on their own.

"We didn't have any training either, so it's very self-sufficient. You can learn within an hour, honestly even in 10 minutes. It's very straightforward."

That simplicity matters even more when staffing is tight. Solv lets Mederi support operations across locations remotely: "When we have a shortage at another office, or someone's running late at the front desk at another office, I can call one of my locations and say, 'Hey, start checking these patients in for that location.' It's very easy to do and it's very helpful."

Solv also removed a recurring judgment call from the front desk: insurance selection. Trained on Mederi's payer contracts, fee schedules, and real insurance cards, ClearPay AI runs eligibility checks and automatically returns the correct payer group — catching subtle cues only a practice's most experienced staff would normally know to look for. That's mattered most with new hires, who don't always know the difference between an HMO and a Medi-Cal plan, exactly the kind of mismatch that leads to a misrouted claim.

“ClearPay AI automatically selects the correct group, even when it doesn’t show it on the card. Our team can rely on this automation and no longer needs to hunt it down.”

Patients: fast check-in, even for walk-ins

The 20-minute check-in that used to cause walkouts is now 35% faster for walk-ins, over 50% faster for bookaheads, and under 10 minutes for patients who book online.

Return visits are faster still. A patient who'd come in for a laceration was back a week later for the stitches to come out. Staff found their record, pulled up the booking ID, and had them checked in within a minute.

"All I have to do is find out what their last name is, type it in, find the booking ID, select a follow-up, and they were literally in within a minute. There was no wait time."

Payments: clearer estimates earlier in the visit

Mederi also uses ClearPay AI for their staff to communicate copay and deductible estimates at check-in, so the patient has visibility into their out-of-pocket responsibility before the visit.

“ClearPay gives us the copay right off the bat, and we’re able to collect it before athena can process.”

For visits that may include an added procedure, staff can enter the relevant code and show the patient what they are likely to owe before care begins. That turns a vague coverage question into a clearer financial conversation at the front desk — and eliminates the risk of Mederi not collecting it after the visit.

When asked what advice he would give to other multi-site urgent care groups hesitating to make the jump, Serj answered:

“If it’s a clinic just like ours, I would say you should have made the switch a long time ago. It streamlines your process. Less headaches at check-in, happier patients.”

“If it’s a clinic just like ours, I would say you should have made the switch a long time ago. It streamlines your process. Less headaches at check-in, happier patients”

- Serj Sarkisian, Clinic Manager, Mederi Urgent Care