Practice Management
The patient is a 48-year-old woman with acute pain after “rolling” her left foot while dancing in high heels at a wedding reception. She has significant pain while bearing weight. View the images taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be.
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The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine’s Innovators in Urgent Care webinar series will roll on with a new installment on Thursday, October 4 at 2 PM, Eastern, when Fabrizia Faustinella, MD, PhD, FACP hosts a discussion on how offering ultrasound imaging services can bolster your overall clinical care—and keep more patients in-house when they need that service. Dr. Faustinella is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of …
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You can save yourself major headaches—and maybe even a lot of bad press—by ensuring the payment terms your urgent care operation accepts are well known to your patients. Ensuring your staff knows how to communicate clearly and compassionately with people who come to your locations for care will go a long way toward keeping the peace even when conflicts occur, too. That message may arrive a little too late for one Massachusetts urgent care center, …
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People will continue to get sick, and probably stand a greater chance of being injured, during times of extreme weather like Hurricane Florence. Healthcare organizations in areas expecting to be affected are already getting the word out that they’ll be available to help those who need medical care. UNC Health Care, a North Carolina medical network, is one of them; they’re waving their $49 fee for online urgent care services during the storm period. Free …
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Predictions for widespread destruction of property and threats to human life are everywhere as Hurricane Florence takes aim at the southeastern coast of the United States, with North Carolina and South Carolina expected to take the biggest hit. Unfortunately, according to a new survey released by DrFirst, many healthcare organizations say they lack confidence in their own disaster preparedness. And it’s not because they think they’re immune; 68% of respondents from acute, ambulatory, hospice, and …
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In trying to fight the ongoing, nationwide opioid crisis, researchers are working to find new options that will ease patients’ pain without putting them at risk for addiction. The most recent effort was a study, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, of adult emergency room patients who were given either 1 mg intravenous hydromorphone or 1 g intravenous acetaminophen for acute pain. The primary outcome of this prospective, randomized, clinical trial was between-group difference …
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Most children who show up in the pediatric emergency department (PED) have a “regular” pediatrician or primary care physician—but not necessarily access to those physicians at times their parents think it’s absolutely necessary for their child to see a doctor, say the authors of a new article published in Pediatric Emergency Care. This leads to a two-fold problem: First, overcrowding in PEDs and, ultimately, diminished quality of care, according to their data. Second, as is …
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It’s well established that obstructive sleep apnea and dyslipidemia are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Now, new research shows evidence of a connection between the two. A cross-sectional analysis of 8,592 patients in the European Sleep Apnea Database turned up a dose response relationship between total cholesterol and oxygen desaturation index (ODI). Breaking down the total cholesterol finding further, triglycerides and LDL concentrations were predicted better by apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) than by ODI. HDL was …
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Urgent message: Paid time-off (PTO) is a common benefit among urgent care providers, but when urgent care operators benefit from an “always on” culture that is open evenings, weekends, and holidays, there may be times when employees are unable to utilize their PTO and expect some kind of accommodation for sacrificing this benefit back to the company. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor …
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A man who reported to a Kansas City-area urgent care center with an open wound on the bottom of his foot—and who ended up losing his leg when his cellulitis worsened and he ultimately developed gangrene and sepsis—is suing the physician who first saw him, alleging that she failed to prescribe the right antibiotic, never cultured his wound, and declined to order any lab work whatsoever. The suit claims the doctor prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics that …
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