Practice Management
A 42-year-old man presents to urgent care on a Sunday afternoon. He explains that he was playing a game of pick-up football in his neighborhood and suffered a rough kick to the face from another player. His nose is swollen, and he’s clearly in pain. An x-ray is ordered to capture a lateral view of the nasal bones. Review the image and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case …
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A 56-year-old female with no past medical history presents to urgent care with 2 episodes of chest pain that woke her up this morning. She had 2 additional episodes while walking and while bathing earlier in the day. The episodes lasted about 10 minutes each, and she is currently free from chest pain. The pain is pressure-like and left-sided, radiating to her back. An ECG is obtained. View the ECG and consider what your diagnosis …
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A 3-week-old girl presents to urgent care with widespread scaly skin. On physical examination, her vital signs are normal. She is noted to have ectropion and large, thick, plate-like scales covering most of her body. The patient had a personal history of prematurity and collodion membrane at birth. There is no family history of dermatological or genetic disorders. View the image below and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of …
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Urgent Message: Although greater occipital nerve block has demonstrated positive effectiveness and few risks as a treatment for acute headache, it is not commonly used. With more familiarity, urgent care clinicians may consider it a useful treatment modality. Elizabeth Reynolds, PA-C, MS Key Words: Migraine, Headaches, Nerve Block Abstract Headaches are a common presentation in urgent care clinics. Various medication options are available but can sometimes be limited for use due to allergies, side effects, …
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Urgent Message: Rupture of a Baker cyst is a rare complication and may manifest with the classic crescent sign of ecchymosis and swelling over the medial malleolus. Given the similarities in presentation to acute deep vein thrombosis, it is essential for urgent care clinicians to be able to differentiate between these diagnoses. Caroline S. Mifsud, DO, MS; Jennifer Ganzhorn, MD; Michael B. Weinstock, MD; Gregory M. Garrison, MD, MS, FAAFP; Elizabeth Westby, MD Keywords: Baker …
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AI Performs Well in Virtual Urgent Care Visits Take Home Point: This study indicates that an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm was better at adhering to clinical guidelines and identifying critical red flags during virtual urgent care (UC) consultations, while physicians were better at adapting recommendations to changing information obtained during a patient consultation. Citation: Zeltzer D, Kugler Z, Hayat L, et al. Comparison of Initial Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Final Physician Recommendations in AI-Assisted Virtual …
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Phyllis Dobberstein, CPC, CPMA, CPCO, CEMC, CCC In the healthcare ecosystem, credentialing is more than a bureaucratic hurdle—it’s the linchpin of successful revenue cycle management. For urgent care centers, credentialing determines whether providers can be reimbursed for the care they deliver to insured patients and whether they can participate in insurer networks. Credentialing is the formal process by which payers—commercial insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid—verify the qualifications, training, licensure, and work history of care providers. …
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Urgent Care people would rather drive change than reactively manage its aftereffects. The same is true of all of us who lead the Urgent Care Association (UCA), College of Urgent Care Medicine (CUCM), Urgent Care College of Physicians (UCCOP), Urgent Care Foundation (UCF), Commission on Ambulatory and Urgent Care Quality (CAUCQ), and our regional chapters. To drive change, you must evolve fast enough to stay ahead, but evolving is usually a messy business. That’s been …
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In cases of cardiac arrest associated with an opioid overdose, outcomes may be improved if bystander CPR is administered that includes both mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing as well as chest compressions, according to a large cohort study of 10,923 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases in British Columbia. As published in JAMA Network Open, researchers investigated the impact of bystander CPR techniques on neurologic outcomes, including among opioid-associated OHCA (OA-OHCA) cases. Of the 1,343 OA-OHCA cases studied, …
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In a study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model and tested its ability to assist in triaging referrals from primary care to specialized care. Evaluated against a reference standard, the AI tool achieved good overall accuracy of 0.716 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.694-0.737) of referrals with high specificity (0.801, 95%CI, 0.777-0.822) but lower sensitivity (0.542, 95%CI, 0.501-0.582). In other words, the AI model correctly classified 71.6% of referrals while …
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