Practice Management
Medicare was overbilled by 12.1% in 2015, thanks to improper fee-for-service reimbursements in 21 states, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). That’s up from 8.6% just five years ago, making it one of the highest error rates in history. Louisiana was the worst offender, with an overbilling average of 19.4%—equating to over $1.2 billion in excess fees. Texas and Georgia also showed over a billion dollars in overcharges to Medicare last …
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More than half of visits to emergency rooms in California’s San Diego County hospitals between 2004 and 2014 were for complaints that were nonemergent, according to the county Health and Human Services Agency there. Overall volume swelled by 40% over that time, despite population growth of just 7% in the nation’s eighth largest city. The problem has gotten so bad that civic leaders staged a media blitz, imploring residents through newspapers and television news to …
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A handful of retail clinics are stealing a page from the urgent care playbook by diversifying services they offer to customers. The Kroger grocery store chain is testing out nutritional counseling in select stores with Little Clinic locations in four states. Urgent care clinics from California to New Jersey have had success employing registered dieticians and nutritionists for years, providing guidance for patients on food plans, food labels, food allergies, and the like. In addition …
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Add Transparency Market Research to the growing list of research organizations that see major growth continuing in the global urgent care market. Using 2013’s figure of $23.5 billion as a baseline, the report projects 30% growth by 2020—making for a market value of $30.5. Urgent Care Centers Market—Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014–2020 cites the growing ranks of senior citizens and concerns over finding cost-effective care, combined with traditional urgent care …
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Hospital systems have been tracking patient experiences for decades. Now one of them is extending that practice to its own urgent care centers; Sentara Healthcare is thought to be the first organization in the country to post aggregate patient survey ratings for urgent care centers online. National Research Corporation reached out to 40,000 patients within 1 to 3 days of a Sentara urgent care visit over the past year, asking them to rate their experience …
Read MoreI never thought I’d quote the rap artist Kamari aka Lyrikal, but I was drawn to his words of wisdom while preparing for this column: “The hardest part about growing up is letting go of what you were used to, and moving on with something you’re not.” As the “children” of urgent care, we have seen an adventurous and revolutionary spirit create an industry and discipline from scratch. We cared about things our “parents” dismissed …
Read MoreIt’s well known that the retail industry has a nasty habit of overreliance on the holiday season to buffer slower sales throughout the year. When the economy is strong, retail sales typically follow, and investors are happy. When the economy falters or when brick-and-mortar retail is disrupted by lowercost, more-convenient alternatives, investors feel a bit under the weather. Similarly, the urgent care dilemma has always been a relative dependence on flu season to account for …
Read MoreLast month, in our March 2016 issue, we reported data for 2014 on the top 20 medications prescribed in U.S. urgent care centers. This month, we bring you percentages for the next 20 most-prescribed medications (items 21–40). The data were obtained as part of the 2014 Urgent Care Chart Survey of 150 million annual visits by patients to more than 800 different urgent care clinics. The survey was conducted by the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. The survey’s methodology …
Read MoreQ. The coding staff has relayed to me that we can now bill for times when my clinical staff must spend extra time with a patient. Is this true? What are the requirements for documentation? A. Yes, two new Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes added in 2016 by the American Medical Association allow you to bill for clinical staff members’ time spent with a patient above and beyond what is considered to be the usual amount of time. …
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A 62-year-old man presents with right shoulder pain that began the previous evening after he fell in his garage. The pain is worse with movement through the range of motion. He has no pain in the elbow and says that he has no head pain or head injury. His social history reveals that he is a smoker and drinks alcohol. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis would be.
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