Northwestern Medicine Immediate Care Center - Lake Bluff

We had a TERRIBLE and UNACCEPTABLE experience with a technician on 3/20/25 at 7:30 pm. My 84 year-old dad went in with a sore throat and fever. When I asked for a strep test to be done, the tech insisted that she didn’t think he had step and that no strep test was needed and that he only needed a rapid Covid test. The worst part, however, was even AFTER the doctor saw him and said he needed a strep test and ordered one, the tech STILL tried to convince my elderly dad that he didn’t need a strep test and didn’t need to listen to the doctor. Lo and behold my dad tested positive for both flu AND strep. I know exactly why this happened. It was 7:30 PM and the facility closed at 8 PM, and the tech did not want to wait for the strep test results. The bottom line is that this tech was willing to send an elderly man home without a strep test and without the medicine / antibiotics he needed just because she wanted to get off of work on time. The more I thought about this, the angrier… I became. How many other elderly patients has she done this to? So I went back to the facility a week later to say this wasn’t right. I was told by Joe, the manager on duty, that I would receive a call from his manager of the facility Kio Mary - who never called me, as promised. Having not heard back from Kio Mary, I took it up with Lake Forest patient relations. I said I wanted to speak with the patient relations management / supervisor. Instead, I was told patient relations spoke with Kio Mary who, in turn, spoke with the technician and this situation hasn’t happened again. No call back from Lisa, the manager in patient relations as I had requested either. Is it too much to ask that we have medical facilities with technicians who put their patients’ interests first as opposed to trying to push them out the door when they are sick because they want to go home??? Let me ask this: would you want your elderly parents to be seen by a tech who insists that they still don’t need tests that a doctor specifically ordered for them? Had I not been on the phone during his visit, he wouldn’t have known better to push back on this tech and demand that she follow the doctor’s orders. He would have gone home without the antibiotics he needed. This is borderline criminal. I give this facility an F for the technician and an F for Northwestern’s patient relations’ response. This situation could have turned out much differently if my elderly father didn’t have someone to help him there. What about all of those elderly patients who don’t have family members who can help them? How does this tech treat them??? Run away from the Lake Bluff facility as fast as you can. Apparently, this tech is still employed there. That’s unfortunate.