StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

UCA Lobbies for Driver Sleep Apnea Screening

The Urgent Care Association (UCA) has filed comments with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), supporting annual screening of transportation workers diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). UCA’s position is in agreement with the FMCSA’s and the Medical Review Board’s contention that a driver with OSA should be recertified annually, regardless of whether he or she is undergoing treatment for the condition. Drivers who do say they’re being treated would have to demonstrate compliance …

More Data Show Millennials May Be Ripe for Urgent Care

Yet another study indicates that “millennials”—individuals between 18 and 36 years of age—have a tough time affording basic healthcare costs (including insurance, in many cases). One out of five says they can’t afford routine health costs, while an additional 26% say they can afford routine healthcare costs, but with difficulty. The Harris Poll found that 70% consider cost to be a “very important” factor when looking for healthcare, and that 16% do not intend to …

Affordable Care Act Giveth to—and Taketh Away from—Urgent Care Centers

William Rodney, MD couldn’t jump fast enough when he found out the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) would be raising Medicaid primary care payments to Medicare levels. His urgent care practice (featured here previously; see One Year In, Latino-focused Clinic Doubles in Size) took in enough additional fees to create an outreach clinic for bilingual uninsured patients and to provide x-rays, ultrasound, and other services for underserved communities in Tennessee. Now he’s worried about …

Patients Can’t Wait? Try to Keep Them ‘in the Family’

If patients walk out the door because the wait in your clinic is too long, that doesn’t have to signal lost business. You can still capture the revenue that would have been generated on the spot and maintain good customer service by encouraging them to visit another of your company’s locations. Take Intermountain Healthcare (IHC), which operates 31 InstaCare/KidsCare centers across Utah. Within the Salt Lake Valley, these urgent care locations are typically no more …

Common Symptoms Could Lead Patients with Elizabethkingia anophelis to Urgent Care

Sudden fever, shortness of breath, chills…just the kind of “funk” that leads countless patients to the urgent care center. Well-informed providers are learning to look a little closer at such patients, though, with 21 people having died this year already from a usually obscure bacterial infection. Elizabethkingia anophelis is marked by symptoms often synonymous with the common cold, though its outcomes can be far more serious. Scores of cases have been reported in Illinois, Michigan, …

Inaccurate Provider Lists a Major Barrier to Care, Study Finds

The first stop for many patients in search of a physician is their health plan’s provider directory. If a new study published in Health Affairs is any indication, though, they might be better off consulting Google—or even the yellow pages—to find their closes urgent care center for prompt attention. The problem is that directories are often inaccurate, with roughly 30% of callers discovering the physician has a specialty other than the one listed in the …

Is ECHO Ready to Go National?

Project ECHO—Extension for Community Health Outcomes—has helped physicians in rural New Mexico connect with specialists their patients would otherwise never be able to see since 2003. Now a pair of out-of-state senators want to see the program become the model for a national system telehealth system. The ECHO Act, cosponsored by Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Orrin Hatch of Utah, would require the Department of Health and Human Services to work with the Health …

‘Out of State’ Doesn’t Mean You’re Out of Range for Telehealth Patients in Alaska

Alaska is the latest of many states marching toward adoption of new telehealth bills, but legislators there has been typically “maverick” in their approach to adopting such new technologies. The interesting thing about that state’s soon-to-be signed law is that physicians won’t have to be in-state in order to prescribe for Alaskans. In addition to removing in-state presence requirements for prescribing via telemedicine, SB 74 will pave the way for patients to connect with occupational …

Urgent Care Signs Up for the War Against Opioid Abuse

Eighty urgent care centers in Los Angeles County, California are closing ranks in an effort to stem runaway abuse of opioid analgesics. Working in concert with the county health department, Safe Med LA signees pledge to follow opioid prescribing guidelines established by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine; to consider screening more patients for opioid misuse or addiction; and to stop refilling “lost” opioid prescriptions and scripts written for chronic pain. Urgent care centers started …

Why an Arizona Measles Outbreak is an Occupational Medicine Concern

Arizona is home to the largest measles outbreak in the U.S., currently. That by itself does not warrant headlines, but health officials there have traced all 22 cases since May to a single detention center. The importance to urgent care operators—especially those that provide occupational health services—is that the outbreak is blamed, in part, one the refusal of some workers at the Eloy Detention Center to get vaccinated. Detainees there have all been vaccinated at …

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