Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Why Urgent Care Needs More Controllers, Fewer Empathizers

Urgent message: The rise of self-service technologies means that when patients actually do need to interact with frontline staff to resolve a service issue, their more complicated issues, more stringent demands, and higher expectations require an opinionated and outspoken “controller” personality type to take control of the situation. As urgent care relies on positive of word-of-mouth to drive new and repeat visits, a center not only must deliver an exceptional patient experience, but also resolve …

Cultivating Change in the Workplace

Urgent message: The strength of an urgent care operation ultimately lies in its people; for any change initiative to be successful, your center’s staff has to be prepared and willing to embrace change. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor for The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. In the workplace, as in life, the only real constant is change. And nowhere is …

The Life Cycle of Urgent Care Acquisitions

Urgent message: Urgent care’s success in delivering a retail healthcare experience has attracted the attention of private equity and hospital investors; understanding the deal timeline is an essential first step for an urgent care operator interested in buying or selling a business. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Introduction Urgent care centers are popular among …

Walk-In Primary Care: What Does It Mean for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: As many primary care providers expand their hours and offer walk-in service, the lines between urgent care and primary care become blurred. To remain competitive, urgent care operators will need to more clearly define their value to patient and payers, increase the acuity of services offered to reduce duplication, and become more innovative in their service delivery and partnerships. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Introduction For years, many primary care physicians (PCPs) have …

New Urgent Care Models Help Cancer Patients

Urgent message: As the population ages, the healthcare system will be faced with a growing number of cancer patients who have unique care needs. Since typical hospital EDs are rarely equipped to capably and cost-effectively service cancer patients who present with timely medical issues, there remains a growing need for additional cancer-focused urgent care resources—an opportunity that urgent care operators and health systems would do well to capitalize on. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is …

Do You Understand the Three Different Reimbursement Methods for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: Payment models seem to evolve as quickly as the urgent care markets itself. Keeping up to speed is essential for continued growth in revenue—if not survival. Here, we weigh the relative merits of some of the most common reimbursement models. The way urgent care providers deliver healthcare continues to evolve, and with it the ways in which providers collect reimbursement for their services. To keep an urgent care practice financially healthy, it’s vital …

The Innovative Power of Criticism

The following summary of an article that appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of Harvard Business Review examines how the skillful application of the art of criticism can be more powerful than traditional ideation methods in taking products, services, and business models in new, profitable directions. As technology continues to rapidly transform healthcare, urgent care providers must familiarize themselves with methodologies they can employ in developing new value propositions towards growing their businesses. Powerful ideation …

Urgent Care Operator’s Liability for a Car Crash into the Center

Urgent Message: The owners and operators of urgent care centers are liable only for “foreseeable” events, which generally excludes a car crashing into an urgent care center and other “freak” accidents. Perhaps it’s the last story on a newscast, or in the strange-but-true section of the newspaper or a website: a vehicle crashes into an urgent care center. As strange as this news may seem, it’s not entirely uncommon. In the past decade, there have …

Calculating the Value of a Like: The Muddled ROI of Facebook Advertising

Urgent message: Ideally, paid advertising should show a return on investment based on the revenue it generates. However, revenue-based metrics are difficult to prove using social media, in which “likes” are more valuable in identifying fully engaged patients than generating direct sales. When it comes to social media marketing channels, Facebook remains atop the throne. The fact that 80% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Facebook page more than supports that assertion, and stands …

Strategies for Managing Employee Burnout

Urgent message: Statistics indicate there is an epidemic of mental, physical, and emotional burnout of employees in the United States, painting a troubling picture that urgent care operators must proactively manage in order to assure continued patient satisfaction. Many of us have been there: getting out of bed in the morning feels like a monumental task. The thought of another work day evokes an exasperated sigh. Previously productive shifts give way to distracted clock-watching. Patience …

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