Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Practice Management

 

Are Those Teambuilding Activities Really Worth It?

By bnapolitano  /  June 1, 2019
Urgent message: High-profile teambuilding extravaganzas may get your crew pumped up—once or twice a year, and assuming you can shut…
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Are Those Teambuilding Activities Really Worth It?

Dealing with and Preventing a Hostile Work Environment in Urgent Care

By bnapolitano  /  June 24, 2019
Urgent message: Workplace harassment has been categorized as an “epidemic” by workplace experts—with medical businesses like urgent care being no…
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Dealing with and Preventing a Hostile Work Environment in Urgent Care

A 9-Year-Old Girl with Sudden-Onset Sore Throat After a Meal

By bnapolitano  /  June 1, 2019
Urgent message: Sore throat and throat pain are common complaints in the urgent care setting. While infectious causes are the…
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A 9-Year-Old Girl with Sudden-Onset Sore Throat After a Meal

Top 5 Wilderness Medicine Topics for the Urgent Care Provider

By bnapolitano  /  June 1, 2019
Urgent message: “Wilderness” medicine is less exotic than one would think. Patients with complaints that began during or after an…
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Top 5 Wilderness Medicine Topics for the Urgent Care Provider

A 47-Year-Old Male with Chronic Wrist Pain and No Recent Trauma

By bnapolitano  /  June 17, 2019
The patient is a 47-year-old man with chronic wrist pain. He denies any recent trauma, but reports the pain has…
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A 47-Year-Old Male with Chronic Wrist Pain and No Recent Trauma

Urgent Care News

Measles Isn’t the Only Preventable Disease on the Rise—Watch Out for Hep A

The winter of 2018–2019 was full of headlines tracking the worst flu season in decades …
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Should the FCC Spend $100 Million on a Telehealth Pilot? Its Commissioner Thinks So

The Federal Communications Commission is considering a $100 million pilot program to expand the use …
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Warn Patients: Before Going on Vacation, Know the Measles Situation Where You’re Heading

Prevailing wisdom is that the current outbreak of measles in the United States began when …
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UCA Webinar: Project Management Is Now An Essential Skill; Do You Have It?

You work in urgent care—so you know it’s an ever-changing, continuously growing industry that gets …
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Know Your Employees’ Histories—for the Safety of Your Patients and Your Practice

An urgent care center in Pecos County, Texas is finding out the hard way that …
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Web Exclusive Articles

Dealing with and Preventing a Hostile Work Environment in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Workplace harassment has been categorized as an “epidemic” by workplace experts—with medical businesses …
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Why Employee Feedback Doesn’t Always Result in Improved Performance

Urgent message: Despite conventional wisdom, extensive research has shown that giving feedback at work—ostensibly to …
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Want to Become an Effective Urgent Care Leader?

Urgent message: Academic research shows that the most effective way to lead is to provide …
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Urgent Care Patients Want Action, Not Apologies

Urgent message: While conventional customer service training emphasizes the need to listen to patient concerns, …
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DOs Ascending—How the Growth of Osteopathy Might Save Urgent Care from the Looming Physician Shortage

Urgent message: As the ever-growing physician shortage continues to strain the long-term viability of the …
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Clinical Articles

Top 5 Wilderness Medicine Topics for the Urgent Care Provider

Urgent message: “Wilderness” medicine is less exotic than one would think. Patients with complaints that began during or after an …
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Top 5 Common Causes—and Controversial Conducts—of Heel Pain in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Nontraumatic heel pain is a common presenting complaint in urgent care. Knowing how to accurately diagnose and develop …
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Suspected Pertussis in Infants and Adolescents—What to do?

Urgent message: Familiarity with the schedule for immunization against pertussis, as well as expertise in diagnosing and prescribing treatment, should …
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Initiating PrEP Services in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Urgent care centers may offer opportunities to provide preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services for HIV due to large numbers …
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Practice Management Articles

Are Those Teambuilding Activities Really Worth It?

Urgent message: High-profile teambuilding extravaganzas may get your crew pumped up—once or twice a year, and assuming you can shut …
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Practical Considerations for Buying/Selling Your Urgent Care Practice

Urgent message: As urgent care remains a hotbed of merger, acquisition, and transactional activity, owners and operators may see a …
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Perfecting the Consumer Financial Experience in Your Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: Changes to insurance plan design are resulting in increased financial exposure for patients, with urgent care providers scrambling …
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End Users and Consolidators: The Next Possible Wave of Transactions in Urgent Care

Urgent message: The idea of a “typical” urgent care operation buyer is evolving along with the industry. While private equity …
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Insights in Images Challenges

A 10-Year-Old Boy With Multiple Lesions On His Ear

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A Construction Worker with Sudden Foot Pain After Stepping Into a Hole

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A 70-Year-Old Female With ‘Bony’ Pain In Her Chest

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A 27-Year-Old Marathon Runner with Epigastric Pain

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A 28-Year-Old Man With Fever, Diaphoresis, And Nausea

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A 43-Year-Old Man with Pruritic, Scale Plaque and Vesicles on His Hands and Arms

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JUCM CAREER CENTER

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June 2019 : Don’t Let the Call of the Wild Put Your Patients at Risk

VIEW ISSUES ARCHIVE

CASE REPORTS

A 9-Year-Old Girl with Sudden-Onset Sore Throat After a Meal

Urgent message: Sore throat and throat pain are common complaints in the urgent care setting. While …
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An 11-Year-Old Girl with Back Pain and Chronic Poor Appetite

Urgent message: Patients with recurrent symptoms should have an expanded history—including a genitourinary history in premenarchal …
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A 44-Year-Old Man with Cough of Several Weeks’ Duration

Urgent message: Lung cancer—the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States—may first present with …
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Infection Masquerading as a Fall in the Elderly

Urgent message: Falls in the elderly may be mechanical or due to an underlying etiology, making …
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Shortness of Breath in a Postprocedural Pneumothorax

Urgent message: Patient histories can be helpful in guiding the examination and raising red flags for …
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HEALTH LAW

How Best to Manage an ‘At-Will’ Termination

Urgent message: In most states, employment is at will—meaning that an employer can fire or terminate …
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Do Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants Qualify for Overtime in the Urgent Care Setting?

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice …
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What Exactly Are Whistleblower Lawsuits—and How Can You Protect Your Urgent Care Operation?

Urgent message: The increasingly visibility of “whistleblower cases,” in which employees share in any fines from …
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What is the Liability for an Urgent Care Slandering a Competitor on Social Media?

Urgent message: While competition for patients among urgent care operators can be intense, speaking negatively of …
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The Finer Points of Video Surveillance in an Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: The increasing use of video surveillance in urgent care requires an awareness of the …
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CLINICAL CHALLENGES

A 27-Year-Old Marathon Runner with Epigastric Pain

A 27-year-old woman who has been training for a marathon presents to the urgent care center with epigastric pain. She …
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A Construction Worker with Sudden Foot Pain After Stepping Into a Hole

Case The patient is a 45-year-old male construction worker who felt pain immediately after stepping down from a truck into …
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A 43-Year-Old Man with Pruritic, Scale Plaque and Vesicles on His Hands and Arms

The patient is a 43-year-old man who presents to urgent care after work with an extremely pruritic fine scaly plaque …
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A 10-Year-Old Boy with Multiple Lesions on His Ear

Figure 1. Case A 10-year-old boy visited urgent care complaining of multiple skin lesions on the rim of his ear …
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A 70-Year-Old Female with ‘Bony’ Pain in Her Chest

Case The patient is a 70-year-old female who presents with gradual onset of constant pain in her left lower chest …
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OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

Want to Drum Up More Occ Med Business? You Need to Educate Prospective Clients!

For urgent care operators who offer occupational medicine services, the value of those services is self-evident. Likewise, businesses that already …
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Urgent Care is Forging Inroads in Occ Med—but There’s Still Plenty of Room for Growth

Occupational medicine can be found in more than half of U.S. workplaces, according to newly published data from the Centers …
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Current Drug Test Data Reflect New Trends in Opioid and Marijuana Use Among Workers

As marijuana use becomes legal in more communities across the country and urgent care providers (among others) get the message …
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National Safety Council Stresses the Importance of Workplace Education on Opioids

As we told you in January, new data from the National Safety Council (NSC) revealed that the odds of dying …
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New York May Call on Telemedicine to Improve Access Under Workers’ Comp

Urgent care operators that offer occupational medicine in New York may want to consider what it would take to start …
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Revenue Cycle Management

Get Ready for the Next Round of Changes to E/M Guidelines

The American Medical Association has announced it is taking the first steps towards revising the new Evaluation and Management (E/M) …
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Be Aware: The CCI Edits, They Are a Changin’

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announce an update to claim adjudication rules for National Correct Coding Initiative Procedure-to-Procedure …
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Correct Modifiers Make All the Difference When Coding for X-ray Services

Q: During a recent internal audit of claims where x-rays were being billed, it was brought to my attention that …
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UnitedHealthcare Discontinuing S9083 and S9088 in Multiple States and Medicare Telehealth Policies

Beginning April 1, 2019 UnitedHealthcare will revise their policies to discontinue reimbursement for HCPCS code S9083, “Global fee urgent care …
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Navigating the Credentialing Process to Maximize Revenue and Minimize Denials

What is the best way to get my practitioners credentialed with various insurance companies and networks? It is frustrating to …
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DEVELOPING DATA

Telemedicine in Urgent Care—Yay, Nay, or Too Soon to Say?

If you read this month’s Urgent Perspectives column (page 1), you were treated to a dynamic conversation between two urgent …
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New Data Show Urgent Care Outpacing Retail and ED Traffic

Urgent care started as something akin to the California Gold Rush; if a physician had the resources, the inclination, and …
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Does Your Website Show Patients How Much Financial Flexibility You Offer?

This month’s Practice Management feature article, Perfecting the Consumer Financial Experience in Your Urgent Care Center, reveals that with increasing …
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Proof: Availability of Urgent Care Lowers ED Traffic—and Could Save Up to $1 Billion

It has always seemed self-evident that urgent care centers, offering a lower-cost and usually faster experience that is also on …
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Can Urgent Care and Advanced Practice Providers Fill the Void as PCP Numbers Dwindle?

The much-discussed shortage in primary care physicians isn’t going to get any better over the coming decades. In fact, it’s …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care

Abstract In Urgent Care-June 2019

Practice of Urgent Care: The Illusion of Multitasking and the Cost of Interruptions Key point: True multitasking is not possible …
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Abstract In Urgent Care-May 2019

Mitigating Risk Through Shared Decisionmaking Key point: Shared decision-making appears to mitigate the risk to clinicians of patient complaints and …
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Abstracts In Urgent Care – April 2019

Rethinking IV Antibiotics for Cellulitis Key point: Oral antibiotics are noninferior to parenteral antibiotics for uncomplicated cellulitis. Erythema of cellulitis …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care-March 2019

Practice of Urgent Care: More Patients, More Decisions, More Fatigue Key point: We should be aware, as clinicians, that as …
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Abstracts In Urgent Care – February 2019

Check the Temps: A Timely Throwback Key points: Peripheral temperatures (ie, temporal, tympanic, oral, and axillary) are inaccurate and cannot …
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

I’m Not a Lawyer, But I Play One…

Like many of you, the fear of a medical malpractice claim casts a wide shadow over everything I do. Like …
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Longitudinal Assessment: A Dent in the ABMS Armor?

With the volume of dissent against Maintenance of Certification (MOC) now at a fever pitch, American Board of Medical Specialties …
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Urgent Care and Antibiotics: Advancing Care and Stewardship

Antimicrobial stewardship is defined as a coordinated program that promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials (including antibiotics), improves patient outcomes, …
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Anger Management: Hostile Encounters in Urgent Care

Eliminating disruption, distraction, and dissatisfaction is paramount to delivering efficient and high-quality care these days. More than ever, urgent cares …
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Slow Medicine: ‘Unprescribing’ America

#TimesUp; #NeverAgain; #Privacy; #OpioidCrisis; #BlackLivesMatter…. The last year has been a dramatic one for turning points in long-festering social issues …
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