Nothing hurts a business more than leaving money on the table. It is hard enough to attract business; the last thing you want to do is not get paid once services are rendered. There are a number of steps in the coding and billing process, and errors at any level can lead to bad debt, missed charges, and poor reimbursement. Let’s look at a few I would call the “low-hanging fruit.” Collection at the Time …
Read MoreClinical Challenge 2: April 2010
The patient is a 26-year-old who presents to urgent care after “twisting” the right foot, complaining of local pain but able to bear weight. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
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16-year-old male falls from motorcycle, takes blow to right ankle
The patient is a 16-year-old male who fell from his motorcycle and received a blow to his right ankle. The motorcycle was moving at a “good pace.” On exam, he is able to weight bear, but with significant pain. You note swelling and tenderness over the medical malleolus. View the x-ray taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be.
Read MoreEvaluating Febrile Patients with Rash
Urgent message: The broad differential diagnoses in patients presenting with rash and fever range from minor conditions to life threatening illnesses, requiring the urgent care provider to make prompt but valid assessment with minimal diagnostic tools. Kosta G. Skandamis, MD The combination of fever and rash is so common that it may sometimes seem to be a daily occurrence in the urgent care setting. Nonetheless, the extensive differential diagnosis requires the provider to be vigilant …
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Beyond Vital Signs: Managing by Metrics for Optimal Health of Your Practice
Urgent message: Establishing a system of metrics and ‘dashboards’ allows the urgent care operator to quantify key success factors and company values that may otherwise be impossible to measure. Laurel Stoimenoff Metric – Function: noun \’me-trik\ Def: A standard of measurement – Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. “What gets measured gets managed.” This pearl applies not only to the behemoths like General Electric, but also to a single-site urgent care center. A 2008 survey by the …
Read MoreClinical Challenge: May, 2010
In each issue, JUCM will challenge your diagnostic acumen with a glimpse of x-rays, electrocardiograms, and photographs of dermatologic conditions that real urgent care patients have presented with. If you would like to submit a case for consideration, please e-mail the relevant materials and presenting information to [email protected]. The patient is a 50-year-old female who presents with pain in her right thumb after taking a fall. On examination, you not local swelling at the base …
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Here Comes the Sunburn: An Update
Urgent message: The advent of warmer weather is a reminder that many otherwise sensible Americans fail to heed warnings to use adequate protection from the sun. The urgent care clinician can expect to see more patients presenting with varying degrees of sunburn. Deepthi Samindla, MBBS, Beth Braig, BA, Mikayla L. Spangler, PharmD, Shailendra K. Saxena, MD, PhD Introduction Sunburn is an acute cutaneous inflammation to excessive exposure to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation. About 30% to …
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Ear, Nose, and Throat Urgencies in Children
Urgent message: Many infections and injuries of the ear, nose, or throat are unique to the pediatric population. parents view many of these processes as urgent, leading them to seek immediate medical attention. Ann Mary Bacevice, MD Introduction Children tend to be especially susceptible to a wide range of infectious illnesses, as well as vulnerable to a host of minor traumas to or affecting the ear, nose, or throat. This, added to the fact that …
Read MoreHospital-owned Urgent Care Networks: Coming Soon to a Community Near You
“The whitecoats are coming, the whitecoats are coming!” if Paul Revere were running an independent urgent care network, this would be his call to arms. After years of denial and arrogance, health systems are finally waking up to the system integration benefits of urgent care. Hospitals stumbled in their response, hampered by bureaucracies, turf wars, and stifling status quo. Well, the fog was finally lifted and urgent care is on the radar. Due, in large …
Read MoreDeveloping Data: May, 2010
In early 2008, UCA revamped its annual survey in conjunction with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University with the goal of assuring that the UCA Benchmarking Committee’s efforts produced a scientifically valid report. Here, we present some of the data from this landmark survey. In this issue: How common is it for urgent care centers to process lab tests onsite – and what tests are they, typically? The question regarding lab tests was …
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