Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care Is Stepping Up to Support Ukrainian Refugees

The war in Ukraine is imposing severe consequences beyond the obvious death and destruction in-country. While many Ukrainians have stayed put in order to take up arms against Russian advances, others—often with children in tow—are fleeing to Poland. While the Poles continue to welcome the refugees, the mounting numbers are likely to result in a healthcare crisis sooner than later. The U.S. urgent care community is distinguishing itself well by pitching in to assist, both …

Whether You’re in Trouble or Not, When the FBI Shows Up You’d Better Have a Plan

Residents of a sleepy Pittsburgh suburb were likely shocked last week to find the parking lot of a local business taken over by FBI vehicles—even more so when they discovered that the building, occupied by an urgent care center that had by all accounts been an indispensable community asset throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, was essentially taken over by agents. The doors were locked to keep patients out, and opened only long enough for agents to …

As the U.S. Continues to Open Up More, Are You Prepared to See More Patients with STIs?

Being freed from pressure to social distance and, more and more now, from being required to wear a mask in public spaces is reopening a lot of doors for people who’ve been isolated for too long. It’s natural to assume that, at least for some portion of the population, we could see an uptick in rates of sexually transmitted infection. Whether coincidentally or by design, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest update on …

Two Years into the Pandemic—and After Months of Progress—Patients Are Still Leery of Visits

Urgent care operators know all too well that visits dropped precipitously at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as patients stayed home rather than risk exposure in the waiting room or from clinicians. By June of 2020, an article in Managed Healthcare Executive reminds us, around 41% of adults begged off visiting a healthcare provider. Whether valid or not, patient concern before the advent of vaccination and testing for COVID-19 was understandable. The greater concern, …

Still Trying to Convince Parents It Make Sense to Vaccinate Their Kids? These New Data May Help

As JUCM News has reported, each week brings a new wave of school systems doing away with mask mandates in concert with still-falling caseloads of COVID-19. While that’s generally regarded as good news, some parents and school officials are collectively holding their breath to see if we see a new spike in positive tests or absenteeism. Ongoing efforts to ensure as many eligible children as possible get vaccinated have the potential to help in this …

What Happens When Patients Don’t Need the ED but Can’t Get to Urgent Care? Here’s One Answer

An elderly lady who longer drives and has a scorching sore throat might be inclined to call an ambulance to take her to the emergency room. Clearly, it’s not an emergency but she’s got to see someone. In most places across the U.S. the end result will be a trip to the ED, which will have her waiting—for hours, maybe—and result in higher-than-necessary charges to Medicare. Under a new initiative in Seattle, however, it would …

‘Test to Treat’ COVID-19 Plans May Bear Some Clarification When It Comes to Urgent Care

If you watched President Biden’s State of the Union speech, you probably took note of changes planned for the “test to treat” initiative, in which patients can visit specified clinics to receive a COVID-19 test and then immediate treatment if warranted. Though the president called out pharmacy-based clinics as a specific example of such locations, the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has since clarified that urgent …

Is Urgent Care Immune to—or at Risk in—the Ongoing Evolution of the American Workplace?

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American workplace has been undergone a rapid evolution. At first it was incumbent upon employers to find a way to maximize productivity when many employees were confined to their homes. Needless to say, that was a more viable option for some than others. Urgent care has been in an unusual position in that some team members can work virtually (administrators, telemedicine providers) while others really have to …

Take Note: New Data Reveal Who Is Most Likely to Write Too Many Antibiotic Scripts

There has been a concentrated effort over the past few years to raise awareness of overprescribing of antibiotics. As you know, it’s not just a matter of spending unnecessarily on drugs that aren’t called for, but also a risk to public health due to growing antibiotic resistance. And yet, every year new data seem to emerge indicating that this problem is just not going away. Now a study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report …