Practice Management
“Convenient location” is a relative term; an address that works for the greatest number of people can still leave many patients outside of your urgent care center’s reach. Oregon’s Samaritan Health Services is trying to bridge that gap by taking its act on the road—Route I-5, to be exact. Pull into the truck plaza just off exit 216 and you’ll see what looks like a semi with SamCare Mobile Medical emblazoned on the outside. Inside, …
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Doctors who tire of typing into screens all day have often assumed that patients share their pain. While it may be true that patients usually do feel ill when they’re around an EHR—they’ve come to the urgent care center for a reason, after all—it probably isn’t the software that’s making them feel that way. A study of patients at a University of Chicago ambulatory clinic revealed positive impressions of physicians’ computer use; as a group, …
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Local media around the country are starting to report people being injured moving down the street—most often on foot, but some drivers, too—while distracted by the game Pokémon Go. Yes, some of them might end up in an urgent care center, but the most important thing for operators to be aware of is that Niantic, the game’s maker, plans to offer local advertising opportunities soon. The location-based game for mobile devices tracks the player’s movements …
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The United States is a transient society, with approximately 12% of Americans changing residences each year. The rates are much higher for those living in apartments (24%) vs owner-occupied homes (5%) and for young people under age 34 (34%) than those more established in their homes, families, and careers. Data also indicate a continued out-migration from dense urban areas to the suburbs and exurbs and from the “rust belt” to the “sunbelt.” When a family …
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URGENT MESSAGE: America’s undocumented immigrant population—those who are ineligible for Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance via a state or federal exchange—are increasingly served by storefront “bodega clinics” that offer a range of services on a walk-in, cash-pay basis. While these “clinicas” provide much-needed access to the communities they serve, there are also concerns about the quality and oversight of their operations. Nonetheless, they could also teach many urgent care centers a thing or two about …
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A 37-year-old woman without a significant past medical history presents after 3 days of a cough that produces yellow sputum with some streaks of blood. She has not checked her temperature but says she has “felt warm” and has some chills. She does have associated shortness of breath, but she reports that she has not had chest pain, leg pain or swelling, sweating, or headache. She has a history of hypertension, and she takes an …
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If it seems like freestanding emergency rooms are popping up everywhere, try driving through a less-tony zip code. Researchers from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital found growth of the ERs is concentrated in high-income areas with growing populations, more traditional ERs, a higher proportion of privately insured patients and a lower proportion of Medicaid beneficiaries. That leaves lower-income patients who need immediate care stuck waiting in the hospital emergency room, even if their complaints are …
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Recently we told you more than 300 people were charged with healthcare fraud involving some $900 million in false billings. Surely some were out to juke the system, but others were probably guilty of nothing more than poor compliance practices. Either way, the government is likely to continue cracking down on this multibillion dollar waste, making it a prudent time to shore up your own compliance program (as required under the Affordable Care Act [ACA, …
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The American College of Physicians (ACP) says cost sharing—deductibles, in particular—may be leading patients to delay even medically necessary services, leaving the door open for urgent care to make its case to cash-paying customers seeking a middle ground. In “Addressing the Increasing Burden of Health Insurance Cost Sharing,” ACP makes five recommendations for making cost sharing more “equitable” in the private market, mainly by reducing overall health care spending, designing insurance plans that allow access …
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The aging population—clearly not a controllable factor—is high on the list of factors that will continue to drive up healthcare spending over the next decade, according to the just-released 2016 National Health Expenditures Report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). National healthcare spending is projected to grow at a 5.8% annual rate, starting last year through 2025. If accurate, that means healthcare spending will rise from 17.5% in 2014 to 20.1% as …
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