Practice Management
Lee A. Resnick, MD Editor-in-Chief, JUCM. Fear and anxiety are high with the first cases of Ebola Virus Disease on American soil. While the CDC advice is useful, urgent cares need guidance that is relevant to our setting and reflects urgent care realities. Dr. Resnick, in collaboration with experts, has created sample policy and procedure that can be adopted at the clinic level to ensure safe and effective screening without unnecessary risk of exposure. Please …
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Urgent message: As the number of patients with autism spectrum disorders continues to increase, it is important that urgent care providers proactively educate themselves about how best to provide acute care for these individuals. ELIZABETH MANGONE and JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP A 14-year-old autistic male presents with both parents. The patient is non-verbal and hypersensitive to touch. The parents state that he was stung by a bee and seems to be having respiratory …
Read MoreLee A. Resnick, MD, FAAFP Fear and anxiety are high in the wake of the first Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) cases on American soil. As with any new, deadly, and transmissible infectious disease, confusion and missteps rule the day. The U.S. public health and disease control entities are certainly not perfect, but the reasonable clinician will see that the ability of these entities to prevent an outbreak is actually quite high. The Disease EVD causes …
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John Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP You are working in an urgent care center when a mother shows up with her 18-year-old daughter, who is “mildly developmentally delayed,” per her mom. The daughter turned 18 yesterday and the mother is concerned that she may have gotten a little “too wild” while celebrating her birthday at a friend’s house and she would like her tested for drugs and STDs. The daughter appears to understand what is …
Read MoreThe Case This x-ray was taken on a 72-year-old man who presented to urgent care after falling off a step stool while trimming branches. He landed directly on his left shoulder and was unable to lift his arm over his head due to severe pain. He thought his shoulder was dislocated. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis would be.
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Urgent message: As the Affordable Care Act encourages greater integration of health insurers, hospitals, and physicians, urgent care will play an important role in increasing patient access, improving clinical outcomes and reducing health care costs. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity Hospitals across the country are partnering with doctors and health insurers—linked by an electronic health record (EHR)—to form accountable care organizations (ACOs) as a way to control health care expenditures by coordinating patient care. …
Read MoreGeneric medication appearance Key point: When providing generic prescriptions, warn patients about generic medication colors and shapes. Citation: Kesselheim AS, Bykov K, Avorn J, et al. Burden of changes in pill appearance for patients receiving generic cardiovascular medications after myocardial infarction: Cohort and nested case–control studies. Ann Intern Med. 2014; 161:96-103. Researchers in this study attempted to determine if changes in color or shape of a generic drug led to discontinuation of that drug. Patients …
Read MoreThese data from the 2012 Urgent Care Industry Benchmarking Study are based on a sample of 1,732 urgent care centers; 95.2% of the respondents were UCA members. Among other criteria, the study was limited to centers that have a licensed provider onsite at all times; have two or more exam rooms; typically are open 7 days/week, 4 hours/day, at least 3,000 hours/year; and treat patients of all ages (unless specifically a pediatric urgent care). In …
Read MoreQ. I have a question on coding Workers’ Compensation claims. I work in a hospital system and hospital coders oversee our charts. I feel they under code for the work we do. They are afraid of audits and refusal to pay. Typically, they will return the chart so that I can document my time and then they will charge for the time spent instead of the documentation. I’m told there are no “bullet points” or …
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