Practice Management
It’s common for competitors to question each other’s practices as they fight for every percentage point of market share—less so for potential customers to accuse companies of being “one of the biggest impediments to innovation in healthcare.” That’s what happened recently in the EMR marketplace, though, as Fairview Health Services CEO James Hereford leveled that very charge at Epic, the EMR provider, according to an article in the St. Paul Business Journal. Epic has been …
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Fake news has been lamented, scorned, or poked fun at for various reasons and from various political perspectives for the past year, but right now a fake news story circulating on social media could put lives in danger. First appearing on Facebook, the “article” falsely claims that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that influenza vaccine has been responsible for many deaths attributed to flu this year. The myth-busting website Snopes debunked the …
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Urgent message: An urgent care operation’s success is determined greatly by the quality of its workforce. Consequently, in increasingly competitive labor markets, urgent care operators need to invest in their strongest employees to get them to stay. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. While we often point to location, marketing, systems, and other “success factors” in …
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As researchers and legislators in some states consider restrictions on physicians to write prescriptions for opioid pain medications, new research indicates there could be a way to continue prescribing safely—albeit a way that is likely to raise some eyebrows. First, in Indiana, the state hospital association, medical association, and health department have pooled their resources to create guidelines for physicians in the state. In a nutshell, they’re advising physicians to cut back on prescribing opioids …
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The Food and Drug Administration has issued a new guidance suggesting there should be something of a kids’ menu for imaging, one that employs the lowest dose of radiation possible when imaging younger patients (or avoids x-rays altogether, if feasible). “Pediatric patients generally require less radiation than adults to obtain a quality image from an x-ray exam, so doctors must take extra care to ‘child size’ the radiation dose,” the FDA said in a statement. …
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Connecticut is the latest state to decide that healthcare providers can be sued for breaches of patient confidentiality under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The Connecticut Supreme Court set the precedent when it decided that one patient’s breach of confidentiality and negligence claims against a provider could move forward. In essence, the decision paves the way for patients to use HIPAA as a standard of care and to sue providers …
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Influenza tends to get all the headlines at this time of year, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only seasonal complaint patients are likely to present with at urgent care centers. Frigid temperatures and icy roadways and sidewalks are sending many patients to healthcare providers in multiple settings. Local newspapers in the Davenport, IA area recently noted that nearly 300 people were treated for falls and other weather-related hazards over the space of a couple …
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The growing geriatric population in the U.S. and increasing demand for convenient and cost-effective care worldwide will be key in the continued growth of the global urgent care market—pushing its overall value to $30.5 billion by 2020, according to a new report from Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE). Urgent Care Centers Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2017–2020 cautions that the physician shortage being experienced in multiple practice settings, …
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Pardee UNC Health Care in North Carolina and WVU Medicine in West Virginia are among the hospitals and systems advising area residents to make full use of local urgent care centers as flu cases mount, slamming emergency rooms with more visitors than they can handle efficiently. Pardee is pleading with area residents who have flu-like symptoms—or any non–life-threatening complaint—to stay away from the ED and instead visit one of its urgent care facilities. In getting …
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The patient is a 25-year-old man who complains of severe ankle pain and immobility after stumbling at work. He was carrying boxes through the warehouse when he stumbled and fell off a platform, landing with his foot in a forced flexion position. View the image taken and consider your next steps, along with possible diagnoses.
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