Practice Management
While patients and payers may expect urgent care to be available 7-days a week, approximately 20% of urgent care centers are closed on Saturdays, and approximately 30% are closed on Sundays, according to a February 2025 analysis of 14,301 centers by National Urgent Care Realty and Urgent Care Consultants. Of the centers open 7 days a week, 24% open and close at the same time every day. Otherwise, centers that are open weekends are likely …
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Evaluating Interventions for Improving Antibiotic Stewardship in Urgent Care Take Home Point: An antibiotic stewardship intervention was associated with reduced rates of antibiotic prescribing for patients with bronchitis, but not viral upper respiratory infections (URI). Citation: Park D, Roberts A, Hamdy R, et. al. Evaluating an urgent care antibiotic stewardship intervention: a multi-network collaborative effort. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2025; Jan 8:1-6. doi: 10.1017/ice.2024.213 Relevance: Antibiotic prescribing for conditions not caused by bacterial infection remains …
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A 28-year-old woman presents to urgent care after an indoor rock-climbing event. She fell 10 feet from the wall without any safety gear to break the fall. She describes deep pain in her left foot, and she is limping. An exam reveals dorsal and plantar midfoot tenderness and bruising across the dorsal foot. A 3-view x-ray series is ordered. Review the image and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the …
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A new oral antibiotic, gepotidacin, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week for the treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs). According to the manufacturer, GSK plc, gepotidacin is a first-in-class antibiotic with a novel mechanism that inhibits bacterial DNA replication to treat female adults and pediatric patients (≥12 years, ≥40 kg) with uncomplicated UTIs. It’s designed to target several of the most common UTI-causing bacteria such as E. coli and …
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A 65-year-old female with a history of hypertension presents with chest pain and dyspnea for 1 day. She denies fever, cough, nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain. Upon arrival to urgent care, her respiratory rate was 28 breaths per minute, blood pressure 179/102, and oxygen saturation 92% on room air. An ECG is obtained. View the ECG captured above and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on …
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A 36-year-old man presents to urgent care with asymptomatic hair loss that developed on multiple sites of his scalp over the previous 2 months. The hair loss developed in round patches that expanded to involve most of the back of his scalp. His past medical history is notable for hyperthyroidism. View the image above and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the following page.
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The surging measles outbreak—now spanning 18 states as of March 20—may continue for about a year, according to health experts in a CNN report. Weekly totals reached 378 confirmed cases nationwide. By comparison, the 2024 total case count for the entire year was 285. Although 95% of the current cases are in patients who were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, a few were reported in people who say they had at least 1 dose …
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Too few patients are receiving recommended chlamydia and gonorrhea treatment in primary care settings, according to a study published in the Annals of Family Medicine analyzing electronic health records from 2018 to 2022. Among 6,678 confirmed chlamydia cases and 2,206 confirmed gonorrhea cases studied, 75.3% and 69.6%, respectively, received treatment. Treatment rates were higher among women than men (chlamydia: 78.4% vs 67.2%; gonorrhea: 78.9% vs 51.4%). Additionally, younger individuals and those with coinfections were more …
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At least once a month, a friend or family member will text me—often for the first time in years—to share the summary of a recent visit to their local urgent care (UC). While these texts are universally unsolicited, I genuinely love receiving them. The unfiltered perspective cannot be matched by even the most sophisticated electronic medical record analytics or patient experience reports. This is because the stories they share with me, while anecdotal, provide a …
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Urgent Message: Hot water irrigation for 2 minutes provided immediate and sustained relief of pain and pruritus, as well as rapid de-escalation of large local reactions due to wasp and bee stings in this series of patients. Ted C. Shieh, MD; Jenny J. Lu, MD MS Citation: Shieh TC, Lu JJ. Hot Water Irrigation to Relieve Discomfort After Wasp and Bee Envenomation: A Case Series. J Urgent Care Med. 2025; 19(7):25-30 Abstract Introduction: Pain, pruritus, …
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