Practice Management
Case The patient is a 25-year-old man who presents with pain in his shoulder after falling from a ladder while cleaning out the gutters of his grandparents’ home. 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. Figure 1.
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The opiate crisis and legalization of marijuana in some states has upped the ante for occupational medicine providers charged with conducting drug screens for workers and prospective employees. Patients who may be concerned about their own ability to pass a urine test don’t make it easy sometimes. Some have been known to try to substitute “clean” samples for their own questionable bodily fluids when they know they’re going to be tested. One woman in Denver, …
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ZOOM+Care and Aetna are going to collaborate on an accountable care initiative in three Oregon counties, with the stated aim of cutting healthcare costs by up to 15% for employers in the Portland area. Offerings under the Aetna Whole Health ─ ZOOM+Care plan will be available starting July 1, though Aetna sales reps are quoting plans to local insurance producers as we speak. The partners plan to enable patients to use mobile phones to schedule …
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On-demand care is no longer limited to urgent care and the emergency room. Retail clinics and telemedicine give healthcare consumers more choices than ever before. That’s done nothing to impede the growth of urgent care, however. The latest annual Benchmarking Report from the Urgent Care Association (formerly the Urgent Care Association of America) and Merchant Medicine shows that urgent care operators continue to see consistent, year-over-year growth in spite of the increased competition. That goes …
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As noted in the latest benchmarking data on the urgent care industry, the very nature of on-demand care has changed since the birth of the Urgent Care Association of America. To demonstrate that this is not a time for “business as usual,” UCAOA announced at its recent annual convention in Las Vegas that it’s changing its name to the Urgent Care Association (UCA) and expanding its offerings to include new providers and technologies that are …
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The business of urgent care may be taking care of patients, but that business won’t last long without sound financial practices. Understanding that the money coming in has to be more than the money going out doesn’t take a whole lot of acumen; truly grasping how to maximize the process for the current health and future growth of the business is another thing, however. The Urgent Care Association of America has invited speaker Dan Phillips …
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With the opening of its new 24/7 Center for Connected Care, Penn Medicine now operates one of the larges telehealth hubs in the U.S. In addition to virtual urgent care services, the system houses Penn Medicine’s 15-year-old e-ICU, and a service that focuses on patients with chronic illness. It has 50 full-time employees. The move reflects growing use of virtual care across the country, as confirmed by data from Sage Growth Partners revealing that 56% …
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West Virginia and Florida are the latest states to seek a legislative solution to the nation’s ongoing crisis of opioid misuse, abuse, and related deaths. In West Virginia, the state senate just voted unanimously to limit new painkiller prescriptions for most patients to a 7-day supply, though the number would be lower for urgent care centers and emergency rooms (4 days) and for dentists and ophthalmologists (3 days). Florida is looking at a bill that …
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A new study from the University of Phoenix College of Health Professionals reveals that 59% of American adults have used online resources (eg, WebMD) to explore symptoms instead of visiting a primary care physician. Just 12% have used telemedicine in place of primary care. The data reflect an online survey of 2,201 people from a range of demographic categories. Doris Savron, executive dean, interpreted the data as proof that the healthcare industry is leaning toward …
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An urgent care operator in Ohio is one of the 14 sites in a phase 3 clinical trial for a prospective Allergan product to treat patients with diabetic gastroparesis (DG), a condition that slows or stops the movement of food from the stomach to the small intestine. The trial, officially titled A 46-week, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled, Phase 3 Study With a 6-week Randomized-withdrawal Period to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of Relamorelin in Patients with Diabetic …
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