Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

UCCOP, CUCM Speak Out Against ‘Urgent Care Kits’

In a new statement, the Urgent Care College of Physicians (UCCOP) and the College of Urgent Care Medicine (CUCM) make a strong stand against the development, distribution and promotion of what are being marketed online as “urgent care kits.” The kits typically include antibiotics, steroids, or other prescription medications packaged for unsupervised use by consumers at home. They are often advertised as a way for families to be prepared for “life’s unexpected moments,” which suggests …

Antibiotics Drive ED Visits With Adverse Drug Events Among Kids

Antibiotics are the most commonly implicated drugs in emergency department (ED) visits for adverse drug events (ADEs) among children, as published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. Researchers found antibiotics were implicated in more than one-third of pediatric ADE visits in the United States during 2019-2023, with an estimated average of 47,628 ED visits annually. In some age groups, antibiotics were identified in more than half of the ADE visits. Among the …

HCA’s Medical City Adds 13 Urgent Care Centers To Its Portfolio

Medical City Healthcare, a subsidiary of HCA Healthcare, this week acquired 13 CommunityMed urgent care centers that will become part of its CareNow Urgent Care network, according to a press release. Currently operating 22 hospitals as well as a number of freestanding emergency departments and ambulatory surgery centers in northern Texas, Medical City Healthcare will now have more than 95 CareNow branded sites across the state—including 2 located in Walmart stores. The deal also expands …

Proposed X-Ray Rules Heighten Radiation Protection Standards

Newly proposed legislation in Arizona aims to regulate radiation safety beyond the current federal and state standards, according to AZ Mirror. Proponents say the package represents a first-in-the-nation push focused on “radiation protection systems” for interventional x-ray. For example, it requires hospitals performing real-time x-ray procedures to install enhanced protection systems in at least 50% of their procedure rooms by July 2027, and the system must include shielding that offers protection equivalent to or better …

UTI Triage Guides Address Virtual Presentations

Clinician teams have developed 2 new algorithms to guide the triage and management of adults with symptoms suggestive of urinary tract infection (UTI) across care settings, including patients who present by phone, portals, virtual visits, and in-person visits. Unlike prior recommendations that were built on telephone-based triage and empiric treatment, this new guidance published in JAMA Network Open reflects the new channels patients use to seek care. They provide structured decision support for determining visit …

New ‘Visual Combo’ Code Brings Reimbursement Risks

Effective January 1, 2026, the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services mandated a critical coding change for urgent care: Visually read COVID-19/flu combination tests must now be billed under the single code CPT 87812. This replaces the previous standard of unbundling the tests into 2 separate codes (CPT 87811 and CPT 87804) and was intended to be revenue-neutral. However, a national analysis of January 2026 data by Urgent Care Consultants exclusively for JUCM reveals a …

Urgent Care Use Rises While ED Use Declines: Employer Claims Analysis

New analysis from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) found that urgent care utilization is increasing, reducing demand that might otherwise fall to emergency departments (EDs). From 2018 to 2022, urgent care utilization among people with employer-sponsored insurance increased 34.5% over the 5-year period from 90 visits per 1,000 people in 2018 to 156 visits per 1,000 in 2022. At the same time, ED visit rates declined by 2.5% from 176 visits per 1,000 people …

APPs Manage Half of Medicare Urgent Care Visits as Volume Doubles

While a study in JAMA Network Open last week found urgent care visits among traditional Medicare patients doubled between 2012 and 2019, at the same time, researchers also found the percentage of Medicare patients managed by advanced practice providers (APPs) increased from 21.0% in 2012 to 50.8% in 2019. According to the authors, visits seen by APPs showed a 497% relative increase in the study period, from 9.5 visits per 1,000 (95% confidence interval [CI], …

64-Year-Old Female With Diabetes and Thumb Pain

A 64-year-old female presents to urgent care complaining of right thumb pain. The patient states she removed a wooden splinter from her thumb herself about 2 weeks prior, she denies any other trauma or systemic symptoms. The patient has a history of Type II diabetes and her last A1C 2 months prior was 9.3. Physical examination reveals the patient is afebrile with normal vital signs. There is a small, scabbed wound on the palmar surface …

42-Year-Old Male With Widespread Rash, Cough and Vomiting

A 42-year-old male presents to urgent care with complaints of cough, throat pain, and vomiting that developed earlier that morning. He returned from a family vacation to the US Virgin Islands 7 days ago and two days later, he began feeling ill with initial symptoms of high fever, myalgia, and severe headache. Over the past 3 days, he has noticed the development of a widespread rash on his trunk. The rash initially appears faint and …

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