Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Practice Management

 

Practical Considerations for Buying/Selling Your Urgent Care Practice

By bnapolitano  /  May 1, 2019
Urgent message: As urgent care remains a hotbed of merger, acquisition, and transactional activity, owners and operators may see a…
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Practical Considerations for Buying/Selling Your Urgent Care Practice

Urgent Care Patients Want Action, Not Apologies

By bnapolitano  /  May 13, 2019
Urgent message: While conventional customer service training emphasizes the need to listen to patient concerns, the best response typically isn’t…
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Urgent Care Patients Want Action, Not Apologies

An 11-Year-Old Girl with Back Pain and Chronic Poor Appetite

By bnapolitano  /  May 1, 2019
Urgent message: Patients with recurrent symptoms should have an expanded history—including a genitourinary history in premenarchal girls. Lavanya Boddu, MD,…
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An 11-Year-Old Girl with Back Pain and Chronic Poor Appetite

Top 5 Common Causes—and Controversial Conducts—of Heel Pain in Urgent Care

By bnapolitano  /  May 1, 2019
Urgent message: Nontraumatic heel pain is a common presenting complaint in urgent care. Knowing how to accurately diagnose and develop…
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Top 5 Common Causes—and Controversial Conducts—of Heel Pain in Urgent Care

An 86-Year-Old Man with a Short History of Cough and Stomach Pain

By bnapolitano  /  May 20, 2019
The patient is an 86-year-old man who is driven to urgent care by his daughter. The patient says he has…
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An 86-Year-Old Man with a Short History of Cough and Stomach Pain

Urgent Care News

Urgent Care Boom is Boosting More Industries Than Healthcare

You’re accustomed to reading the latest good news about the urgent care industry here. Lately, …
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UCA Webinar: Taking the Stress Out of the Accreditation (and Re-Accreditation) Process

The mere thought of applying for UCA accreditation while you’re hiring, marketing, negotiating contracts, billing …
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What Better Place to Fight Bullying Than a Pediatric Urgent Care Center?

Children who are being bullied will go to great lengths to deny they’re being bullied …
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HHS Ambulance Program Would Cut Costs and Push More Patients to Urgent Care

The United States Department of Health and Human Services is working on a pilot program …
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The Longer Patients Wait in the ED, the More of Them Leave Against Medical Advice

There’s a strange dichotomy afoot in California emergency rooms: Patients are heading to the emergency …
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Web Exclusive Articles

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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Biggest Management Decision-Making Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Urgent message: The entrepreneurial nature of urgent care “business” means that care providers are frequently …
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Planned DocuTAP-Practice Velocity Merger Would Be a Game-Changer in Urgent Care

Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing, plans to merge …
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How to Make Yourself Indispensable

Urgent message: In today’s rapidly changing and hypercompetitive business environment, you don’t have to “reinvent …
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Clinical Articles

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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Postoperative Complications in the Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: Patients who have had recent surgical procedures may present to urgent care centers for reasons ranging from seeking …
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Practice Management Articles

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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When the ‘Inner Entrepreneur’ Needs to Step Aside

Urgent message: Being an aggressive founder who is willing to take risks is invaluable when it comes to starting and …
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Insights in Images Challenges

An 18-Month-Old With An Itchy Rash And Wheezing

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

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A 55-Year-Old Man With A 2-Day History Of Respiratory Symptoms, Palpitations, And Dizziness

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

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A 47-Year-Old Woman With Hip Pain After Exercise

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

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JUCM CAREER CENTER

Download Past Issues

May 2019 : Turning Heel Pain to Healed Pain in the Urgent Care Center

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CASE REPORTS

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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Cat Scratch Disease Presenting as Parinaud’s Oculoglandular Syndrome

Urgent message: Cat scratch disease caused by the bacteria Bartonella henselae typically presents as isolated lymphadenopathy …
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HEALTH LAW

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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Education is Key to Avoiding Increasingly Sophisticated Cyber Crime

Urgent message: As digital communication becomes more integral to our daily lives and job functions, cybercriminals …
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CLINICAL CHALLENGES

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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A 28-Year-Old Man with Fever, Diaphoresis, and Nausea

The patient is a 28-year-old man who presents to urgent care with a single annular ecchymosis lesion on his leg …
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An 18-Year-Old Female with Sudden Sharp Chest Pain

Figure 1.   Case The patient is an 18-year-old female who presents to urgent care with 1–2 hours of “sharp” …
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A 57-Year-Old Man with a Chief Complaint of Syncope 3 Hours Ago

Case The patients is a 57-year-old man with a complaint of syncope 3 hours before arrival. He states he was …
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OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

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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Latest Drugs Added to Panel Turn Up More Often in Positive DOT Tests

The U.S. Department of Transportation added four semisynthetic opioids to its drug testing panel on the first of this year …
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Attention Occ Med Providers: FMCSA Loosens Up Rules on Diabetic Commercial Drivers

With publication of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) new Qualification of Drivers; Diabetes Standard, drivers who have insulin-treated …
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Revenue Cycle Management

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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Big Changes in Medicare Evaluation and Management Reimbursement

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has published the proposed changes for the Calendar Year (CY) 2019 Physician …
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DEVELOPING DATA

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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The Connection Between Age and Choosing a Healthcare Setting

If you’ve worked in more than one setting—say, a traditional primary care office and an urgent care center—you’ve probably noticed …
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Abstracts in Urgent Care

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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Abstracts In Urgent Care – January 2019

A Brief Introduction Happy New Year! 2018 is now behind us and it was another great year for urgent care …
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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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