St. Luke’s Outpatient Laboratory

Despite its updated building front on Valencia Street, this outpatient lab is a sore and outdated disservice to the local Mission community and an example of lackluster professionalism and almost purposeful inefficiency. On Saturdays, the time when working folk might only be able to make it in for routine lab tests, the facility is open from 9:00 — 12:00. Its convenience beyond that, however, is utterly deceiving.
When you walk in, usually there is only one person manning the registration, and they are hidden behind a cube, so you can’t tell whether they’ve even perceived you’ve walked in. No bell, no number to take, no sign in sheet. So, you stand around waiting for some sort of human acknowledgement. Between 1 – 5 minutes later, the registrar will pop her head up and tell you she’ll be with you soon, which, while manageable, is utterly false. Note, this doesn’t mean she’ll actually see you and register you. No, she will merely take your lab order and then proceed to write your name down on a list and then hand back the lab order to you sight unseen. Something a sign-​in sheet could’ve taken care of from the get go.
Then you proceed to wait for up to another 20 – 30 minutes while she calls the people before you on the list to come and sit down just to verify insurance information, upon which they merely return to the waiting area and it takes another few minutes before your lab stickers are printed and then forward to the actual phlebotomist.
The drawing of blood or whatever lab work is needed is competent and typical, so say under 5 minutes, but with a registration process almost purposely designed to include extra steps that add no efficiency or value, you’ll be waiting for that 5 minute blood draw for upwards of 30 – 45 minutes, and that’s with maybe just 3 people ahead of you.
I naively thought going to the lab closest to my home would be a time savings, but having recently been turned away from St. Luke’s (having a lab order that clearly states a several hour lab procedure was ordered, and waiting for 35 minutes to be called to be registered, only to be informed that they don’t do that type of testing on the weekends), I went to the Davies campus on Castro. The registrar there was on the ball and before I even got to the window, she was asking for my phone number to pull up my record and had my lab stickers printed in under a minute. The wait for the lab tech, on a weekend, was also minimal.
It’s so unfortunate that the community around the St. Luke’s campus is relegated to mediocrity, when it’s possible to get better service less than 2 miles away.