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Since 2011
We started as a phone line for people at the wrong door.
Northwell runs this site at northwell.us.com. We are the patient and family services desk of a large care network. In practice that means a patient guide service in Austin and a small classroom beside it, working from 71 Mill Street, Unit B, Austin, Texas 43086, United States.
- Trading name
- Northwell
- What we are
- Patient & Family Services
- Running since
- 2011
- People at the desk
- 38
- Seats per class
- 12, never 13
- Based at
- Mill Street, Austin
Not medical care. Northwell's guides and classes are not medical care and do not replace your doctor.
If something is urgent, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. The desk cannot book an emergency for you.
History
One phone, then a desk, then a room with a door that opens at 08:45
A big network has a lot of entrances. In 2011 the question people kept asking was not medical at all. It was: which building is it, and where do I leave the car?
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2011
One phone number, answered by two people in a borrowed office. The brief was narrow on purpose: tell callers which of the network's doors to walk through, and nothing else. They logged every call on paper. Parking came up more than anything.
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The first letter
Callers forgot the answer by the time they hung up, so the desk started posting a letter after each call. Directions on page one, the checklist and the parking on page two. That letter still goes out, reworded many times, with the same two-page layout.
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Named guides
People called back and got a different voice each time, and repeated their whole story. So each caller got one named guide who stayed with them until they were through the right door. It is the single change we would defend hardest.
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Classes
The same questions about packing for a hospital stay came in every week. A guide started answering them to a room of people instead of one at a time. That became the hospital stay preparation class, and the other programs followed from requests.
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Mill Street
The phone desk and the classroom moved under one roof at 71 Mill Street, Unit B. Oak floors and long windows, with a door that opens fifteen minutes before each class starts.
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Today
Thirty-eight people. The brief has grown, but the first rule has not moved. We answer the question before the appointment and leave everything clinical to the clinician.
The people and the work
What the 38 people at the desk actually do each week
38
Patient guides, class instructors, front desk staff and the careers team, all at the coordinating office on Mill Street. There is no call center elsewhere and no outsourced line.
Visit planning, by phone
A 30-minute call with a named guide, at no charge. Which location to use, what paperwork to bring, where to park, who to ask for at the desk. Then a letter in the mail and a check-in call the day before. This is how most people first meet us, usually because they need help booking a hospital visit and cannot work out where to start.
Classes, at Mill Street
Six published programs with fixed timetables and indicative fees: hospital stay preparation, new parents, family caregiver skills, CPR and first aid, steady movement for people over sixty, and the planning call above. The full detail, including who each one is not for, is on the programs page.
Careers, for applicants
We hire our own guides, instructors and desk staff, and every new person shadows for ten working days before they work alone. The roles and the route in are on the careers page.
The 12-seat rule
Why no class ever takes a thirteenth person
The instructor learns every name before the first break. With twelve people that takes about ten minutes of paying attention. With twenty it does not happen, and the room turns into an audience.
Twelve is also what fits around one training bed, or on six mats in pairs for the CPR course, without anyone watching from the back. The new parents class is smaller again: six couples, because each couple needs a car seat and a practice doll within reach.
We have been asked many times to add chairs for a popular date. The answer is no, and we run another date instead. If a class is full when you call, the guide offers you the next one with a seat and puts your name on a short waiting list for the one you wanted. Cancellations do come up, usually two or three days out.
The rule has a cost. It keeps fees where they are, since a room of twelve cannot be spread across forty payers. We think that is the right trade and we publish the fees so you can judge it yourself.
What we refuse
Things Northwell will not do, and why each one is on the list
These come up every day. The guide says no, and passes the question to your clinician or to 911 the same minute. Our terms say the same thing in more formal words.
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Tell you what a symptom means
A guide has never examined you and is not qualified to. We will help you get the appointment with someone who is.
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Give a diagnosis or a second opinion
Not on the phone and not in a class. People sometimes attend a class hoping for one. Instructors are trained to stop that conversation kindly and early.
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Change or interpret medication
We ask you to bring a list of what you take each morning to some visits. We do not read it for you. Your doctor or pharmacist does.
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Book or manage an emergency
If a caller describes something urgent, the guide tells them to hang up and call 911. That is the fastest route, and a desk in between only slows it.
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Seat someone without the required clearance
The steady movement class needs a signed note from your physician before the first session. Without it we cannot seat you, even if you have come a long way.
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Take payment on this website
Nothing is sold online. Fees shown here are indicative and confirmed when a guide books you.
Reaching a person
A guide answers on the third ring on weekdays
After six in the evening you get a voicemail, and a call back before ten the next morning. Email is read by a person, not a filter, every weekday.
If you are writing about your own data or a privacy question, use the same email address and say so in the first line. We answer data requests within 7 days. The route is set out in the privacy notice.
71 Mill Street, Unit B
Austin, Texas 43086
United States
Weekdays by phone. Voicemail after six, returned before ten the next morning. Class days, the door opens fifteen minutes before the start.