Practice Management
JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP He watched her walk through the door at the end of a long, busy day. She was an attractive, well dressed, athletic-looking young lady with a warm smile, the kind of girl he’d want his teenage son to date someday. “Slam dunk,” he thought. “This will be a quick visit and I’ll still get out on time.” The front office team registered her quickly. He suspected that they, too, …
Read More
Urgent message: Each case—and patient presentation—in urgent care must be evaluated on its own merits. Rare diagnoses are possible and “benign” back pain complaints sometimes are not. HEATHER VARLEY, PA-C, and WILLIAM GLUCKMAN, DO, MBA, FACEP Introduction Each day in the urgent care setting, we are presented with a range of various pain complaints, from headaches, to back pain, to extremity pain. These complaints may be the result of injury, overuse, infection, arthropathy, or have …
Read More
Urgent message: FSEDs have a role to play in our health care system but it’s not to supplant urgent care centers. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity Introduction Freestanding emergency departments (FSEDs) are walk-in medical facilities—structurally separate and distinct from a hospital—that hold themselves out to provide emergency care to the general public. While they claim many similarities to hospital EDs—capabilities to diagnose and stabilize cardiac arrest, stroke symptoms, breathing problems and trauma—there are also …
Read More
Urgent message: Whether benign or vision-threatening, acute eye conditions seen in the urgent care setting require careful evaluation and triage, based on access to the right tools and knowledge of key clues to diagnosis. SARVOTHAM KINI, MD In Part 1 of this article in January, we discussed urgent care management of foreign bodies in the eye, corneal abrasion, red eye, scleritis, and conjunctivitis. In Part 2, we will review subconjunctival hemorrhage, uveitis, iritis, keratitis, acute …
Read MoreLee A. Resnick, MD, FAAFP It is well known, and exhaustively preached, that a satisfied customer will tell 2-3 people while a dissatisfied one will tell 8-10 (with some estimates as high as 20). Measuring and tracking patient satisfaction has become a focus of most every practice owner, much to the chagrin of their employees, who often view this as a way to publicly embarrass and unfairly harass the staff. And yet, whether we are …
Read More
Urgent Message: Most urgent care centers don’t carry commercial equipment for ear suction but a kit can be assembled with readily available supplies. Author: Ali Ahmadizadeh, MD, is an attending physician in the Department of Otolaryngology at New York Head and Neck Institute, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY. Otorrhea is one of the most frequent clinical presentations in urgent care. Examination of the ear ideally requires ear suction, but that is not possible in …
Read More
The patient, a 7-year-old girl, presented after falling and twisting her left knee. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis would be. Click to the next page below to see the resolution to this case!
Read More
This x-ray was taken on a 27-year-old man with a cough and fever. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis would be
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).
Read More