Walk-in medicine is sold on convenience: no appointment, short wait, open on Sunday. Zeinab Arafat has seen half of her practice's patients herself, and her position is that convenience is the easy part. "Healthcare is not retail" is one of the rules she runs her practice by.
Arafat, APRN, AG-ACNPC, is a board-certified acute care nurse practitioner who built and leads True Compassion Urgent Care in Palm Beach Gardens and Stuart, Florida. She came to urgent care from more than a decade in Cleveland Clinic intensive care units. The practice has cared for more than 35,000 patients since 2021, and half of them she saw personally.
A short visit is still a clinical evaluation
Her patients describe the same thing in different words: she listens, and then she goes looking. People who had been told for years that nothing was wrong have left her exam room with an answer. She will take the less-traveled path when the obvious one does not add up. A short visit gets the same standard of thinking as any other.
The clinician has to be able to say no
A walk-in patient often arrives knowing what they want. Arafat will not write the antibiotic that will do nothing but harm, sign the paperwork that says something untrue, or perform a procedure that is unsafe because a patient is certain or angry. In her view, a clinician who cannot say no is not protecting anyone, least of all the patient. She says it calmly, explains it, and then gets to work on what will help.
Every visit is reviewed
As the practice grew, she kept direct oversight. She reviews every visit that happens under her clinical leadership, including those she did not see herself, and she guides the providers and medical assistants directly instead of through layers of management.
The clinician is not the insurance company
Much of the friction in a walk-in visit has nothing to do with medicine. Coverage, referrals and what a plan will pay are decided elsewhere. Her rule is that accountability belongs to everyone in the room: providers own their mistakes, patients own accurate information and their obligations, and insurers own their policies.
Respect in both directions
The principle under all of it is that excellent healthcare requires respect in both directions. Patients are owed honesty, competence and a clinician who shows up fully. The staff who care for them are owed dignity and safety. Her patients say she is not easy. They also say she is what they needed.
More about her career and credentials is at zeinabarafat.com.