Events

With incidence of sexually transmitted infection at all-time highs in the United States, you may have already noticed an increase in patients presenting with symptoms concerning for gonorrhea, syphilis, or other STIs. And if you haven’t, it’s likely you will. Historically, patients have found urgent care to be an ideal setting for concerns they may be hesitant to raise with their “regular” healthcare provider. Further, as JUCM and JUCM News readers know, many patients now …

Urgent care providers have been proficient in treating patients with influenza for a very long time. That’s not to say it’s ever been simple, of course, as the formulation for each season’s vaccine is an educated guess that leaves little time to assess how severe the caseload will be. COVID-19, of course, required a very steep learning curve across every practice setting—but, again, urgent care providers proved up to the task. That’s a good thing, …

As cases of COVID-19 (and restrictions like social distancing) took hold in the United States, an interesting thing happened. Spread of many other communicable diseases declined. Sexually transmitted infections were among them. Conversely, as the pandemic has cooled down and people are returning to past behaviors, STIs are surging to prepandemic levels—and beyond. To make matters worse, a lot of STI specialty clinics that used to shoulder much of the assessment-and-treatment burden have shut down. …

COVID-19 has taken up a disproportionate amount of time in the context of what we consider “typical” urgent care presentation. Now that we’re moving steadily (if slowly) to what used to be normal, you can expect patients to present more often with concerns for minor illness and injuries from sprains to lacerations. The latter, in particular, requires a certain level of skill and familiarity to optimize the chance for positive outcomes. JUCM will host a …

Access to antiviral therapy is expected to broaden for patients with COVID-19 in the near future. Urgent care centers are well positioned to offer key advantages for patients compared with other settings—most significantly, considering that the timing of oral therapeutic initiation is essential to reducing viral load, 7-day walk-in access. To help ensure urgent care providers are well armed with the most up-to-date information, the Urgent Care Association and the College of Urgent Care Medicine …

The patient who presents with an articulate, specific explanation of their complaint is both a blessing and a curse to the urgent care provider. On the plus side, you’re not forced into a game of 20 questions just to get a sense of why they’re sitting in your exam room. On the downside, even the most forthcoming patient can’t tell you what they’re unaware of. They know what’s uncomfortable, but not much else—and that can …

As if recovery from economic hardships wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t challenging enough, a slew of new coding changes took effect January 1. If you’re having trouble keeping up with the right way to code every procedure—thereby assuring you’re doing what you can to be reimbursed fairly—you’re not alone. That’s why JUCM invited Christian Molstrom, MD to lead a two-part discussion of 2021 Coding Best Practices for Providers. For the second live webinar, Dr. …

In spite of a decades-long history of providing excellent, economical walk-in care across the country, the urgent care industry has been largely overlooked as a reliable ally in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. First, urgent care centers were left out of the supply chain for testing supplies in the early months of the pandemic. Now it can seem like SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are being distributed to every possible recipient other than urgent care (and badly, at that, …

These are tough times for urgent care. Many operators are still struggling to get back to some sense of a “normal” way of doing business and, likely, recovering from a serious shortfall in patient visits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this is no time to experience delays in getting paid on the essential services you provide to patients in need. And yet, if you’re not up to date on changes in …

Burnout is always a concern in busy urgent care centers. However, with a 46% increase in visit volume and urgent care centers administering 25% of U.S. COVID-19 tests weekly recently, the risk is greater than ever. While you may not be able to singlehandedly end the COVID-19 crisis, you can take steps to provide care for your team. Some of them will be spelled out in an upcoming webinar, Managing Provider Burnout: Tips for Physicians …