Urgent Care News

Stewardship Program Reduces Antibiotic Prescriptions in UC

An antibiotic stewardship intervention at Mayo Clinic lowered unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory infections …
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Anti-seizure Meds Can Lead to Rare Organ Injury

 A new FDA warning is being added to prescribing information for the anti-seizure drugs levetiracetam …
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Why Consumers Love Urgent Care

A high-level view of the urgent care landscape in the New York Times last week …
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Consumer Cash Pay Applied to Deductibles in 2 States

For consumers with high deductible health plans—which have become the rule these days rather than …
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Low-Sodium Diet Proves a Good Choice Once Again

Cutting even 1 teaspoon of salt from the typical American diet each day can lower …
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Web Exclusive Articles

A New 4-Year-Old Patient with Fever and Sore Throat After a COVID Exposure

Bradley L. Laymon, PA-C, CPC, CEMC PRESENTATION A mother brings in her 4-year-old, who has …
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Code Case Files: An Established Adult Male Patient with 2 Days of COVID-Like Symptoms

Bradley L. Laymon, PA-C, CPC, CEMC PRESENTATION A 47-year-old established male patient presented after 2 …
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What Qualifies Someone to Take X-Rays in the Urgent Care Center? It All Depends on Where You’re Located

X-rays are high on the list of services patients expect urgent care centers to provide …
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Repairing Parallel Lacerations in the Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: Parallel lacerations or those that simply occur in close proximity pose a unique …
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Getting the Most Out of Your Urgent Care Google Ads Budget in 2022

Urgent message: As urgent care volume has dropped from pandemic highs, the average cost per …
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Clinical Articles

Author Affiliation: Andrew Alaya MD MSc, HMC in The Hague, The Netherlands. The author has no relevant financial relationships with any commercial interests.

Detection and Management of Urinary Calculi in the Urgent Care Setting

Andrew Alaya MD MSc Urgent Message: Abdominal pain is a common urgent care complaint that may result from a variety …
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Differentiating Acute Conjunctivitis Presentations in Children

Urgent message: Make the distinction between viral and bacterial conjunctivitis to ensure children receive appropriate treatment and to avoid the …
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HbA1c Screening for Diabetes

HbA1c as Screening/Diagnoses for Early or Asymptomatic Diabetes in the Urgent Care Facility

Urgent message: The use of all-inclusive kits with compact, table-top analyzers provides a rapid quantification of HbA1c levels in patients …
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Low-dose naltrexone (LDN)

Management of Patients on Low-Dose Naltrexone: A Clinical Review for Urgent Care Providers

Urgent message: Low-dose naltrexone (LDN) is becoming more common as a treatment option for pain and thus will be increasingly …
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Practice Management Articles

Pay Transparency in Urgent Care

What Urgent Care Operators Need to Know About Pay Transparency

Urgent Message: As a rising percentage of jurisdictions require disclosure of salary ranges to current and/or prospective employees, urgent care …
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Worksite Clinics: Another Competitor or a New Opportunity for Urgent Care?

Urgent Message: Employer worksite clinics represent both a threat and an opportunity. Urgent care could lose some volume to no-cost …
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Urgent Care Run School-Based Health Centers

Innovation and Sustainability: Urgent Care Run School-Based Health Centers Improve Community Health

Urgent message: By leveraging grant funding, community-facing services, and a collaborative model with school districts, QUICKmed Urgent Care operates a …
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Urgent Care’s Top Hospital-Affiliated Urgent Care Operators—by Number of Locations

The makeup of the urgent care industry has changed considerably since its inception in the 1970s. At the time, it …
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CASE REPORTS

Diabetic Ketoacidosis Due to Intra-articular Steroids: A Case Report

Tracey Quail Davidoff, MD, FCUCM Urgent Message: Corticosteroid use is common, and patients receiving corticosteroids of …
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Headache and Paranoid Delusions: A Case Report of Missed Neurocysticercosis

Urgent Message: Headaches are common, but when patients present with concurrent psychiatric symptoms, seizures, and signs …
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When a Bleeding Hemorrhoid Is a Sign of Something More Sinister

Urgent Message: An expanded list of differential diagnoses can help clinicians identify when isolated bleeding is …
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Myotendinous Rupture of Pectoralis Major: A Case Report

Urgent message: Nonspecific presentation and time lapsed between injury and presenting to urgent care can delay …
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COVID-19 and RSV: Coinfection Requiring Hospitalization

Click Here to download the article PDF. Urgent message: Coinfection with COVID-19 and other respiratory pathogens …
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HEALTH LAW

Changing an Employee from Full-Time to Part-Time Status

Urgent message: Whether due to reduced staffing needs or employee preference, some employees in urgent care …
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Are Urgent Care Providers Liable if They Don’t Test Patients for COVID?

Click Here to download the PDF. Urgent message: As the severity of newer strains of SARS-CoV-2 …
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Who Can Take X-Rays in an Urgent Care Center?

Urgent message: Given that x-ray is a differentiating feature of “urgent care” and the current challenges …
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What Qualifies Someone to Take X-Rays in the Urgent Care Center? It All Depends on Where You’re Located

X-rays are high on the list of services patients expect urgent care centers to provide when …
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Avoiding Defamation Lawsuits in Urgent Care

Urgent message: People are unlikely to trust their healthcare to a provider with a sullied reputation, …
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CLINICAL CHALLENGES

52-Year-Old With a Lateral Nasal Growth

A 52-year-old man presents to urgent care for a new growth on his nose. On examination, a smooth, faint pink …
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66-Year-Old With Weakness and Dyspnea

A 66-year-old male presents in the urgent care, saying “it’s hard to breathe.” He’s had weakness and dyspnea for one …
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75 Year Old With Rib Pain

A 75-year-old woman presents to urgent care following a fall in her home that day. An adult daughter explains that …
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46-Year-Old Male With Severe, Worsening Chest Pain

A 46-year-old man with a history of hypertension presented in an urgent care center saying he’s had chest pain for …
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8-Year-Old With Facial Lesions

An 8-year-old-boy presented to urgent care with his father for evaluation of 3 weeks of painless facial lesions. The patient …
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OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

Does Concentra’s New Acquisition Foreshadow a New Era for UC and Occ Med?

On the surface, it seems like the kind of event that has become commonplace in urgent care: A large, national …
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Update: The COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Many Businesses Is Off—Again

Just when you thought you had clarity on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s mandate to vaccinate workers at businesses …
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That Vaccine Mandate for Private Businesses That Was Called Off? It’s on Again—and the Clock Is Ticking

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s plan to require employers with 100 or more workers to institute a COVID-19 vaccine …
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Your Occ Med Clients Need Your Support with the New COVID-19 ETS—Immediately

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration just issued an Emergency Temporary Standard intended to protect workers from getting infected with …
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More People Are Trudging Off to Work on Site. Do You Know Who’s at Greatest Risk for COVID-19?

While some employers are content to maintain remote or hybrid work situations for their workers, either because of strong stances …
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Revenue Cycle Management

ICD-10-CM: What’s New for 2024

Phyllis Dobberstein, CPC, CPMA, CPCO, CEMC, CCC, is RCM Compliance Manager, Experity With the fall season comes all the coding …
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Is It Time to Revisit Your Urgent Care Marketing Tactics?

Heather Real Click Here to download the article PDF In the journey of an urgent care visit, where does the …
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Modifier 25: What You Need to Know

Phyllis Dobberstein, CPC, CPMA, CPCO, CEMC, CCC Modifier 25 is used to indicate a significant, separately identifiable evaluation and management …
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De Novo vs Acquisition: What’s the Best Pathway for Urgent Care Growth?

Click Here to download the article PDF Urgent message: When considering growth in urgent care, there are both advantages and …
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End of the Public Health Emergency: What’s Next?

Click Here to the download PDF. With expiration of the national Public Health Emergency (PHE) as of May 11, the …
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DEVELOPING DATA

Telehealth Adoption Rises Steadily in Urgent Care

Consumers have come to expect a level of convenience from the healthcare system that parallels the digital innovations they enjoy …
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Center Locations Double, Driven by Big Consumer Trends

Across the hills and valleys of healthcare, the rising power of the consumer has reshaped the landscape more than any …
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In-Office Dispensing: The Good, the Bad, and the Unlikely

On paper (so to speak), in-office prescribing in the urgent care center would seem to be a no-brainer for all …
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There’s No Casual Approach to Improving Antibiotic Stewardship—but When You Make the Effort, It Works

Improving antibiotic stewardship was an industry-wide mandate even before a 2018 study indicated that urgent care appeared to be more …
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That Notion That Urgent Care Centers Help Volume in the ED? It’s True

One of the key “selling” points of urgent care has always been that if patients who don’t have limb- or …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care

Abstracts in Urgent Care November 2023

What Should We Do with the Nail? Nailbed Repair in Children Take Home Point: After nail bed repair, discarding the …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care – October 2023

Accurate Sample Types for STIs Further evidence for the PEN-FAST Tool Artificial Intelligence in Making Clinical Diagnoses Effects of Antibiotics …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care – September 2023

Course of Antibiotics for Pediatric UTI Link Between Influenza and Myocardial Infarction Make the Most of Patient’s Wait Times Cognitive …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care – July/August 2023

Click Here to download the article PDF. Pediatric Lyme Disease and Race Predictive Value (or not?) of Hyperacute T-Waves POC …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care – June 2023

Click Here to download the article PDF Ivan Koay MBChB, MRCS, FRNZCUC, MD Employing Virtual Reality with Anxious Children Assessing …
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Broader Issues Surround ‘Work Note Seeking’

Joshua Russell, MD, MSc, FCUCM, FACEP Who among us has worked a single urgent care (UC) shift without at least …
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What Happens If We Do Nothing?

Joshua Russell, MD, MSc, FCUCM, FACEP In its most modern form, medicine revolves around action. We are trained as clinicians …
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Analogy: A Powerful and Underutilized Bedside Tool

Joshua Russell, MD, MSc, FCUCM, FACEP Click Here to download the article PDF Sophie was back with another one of …
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It’s Time to Think Differently about Follow-up

Click Here to download the PDF In the macro and “dot phrase” era, there are many refrains that appear in …
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Conquering the Fear of Penicillin Allergy: The Boogeyman of Urgent Care

I had time to see one more patient as my shift was winding down. “Wound check. That should be a …
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