Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

QuikTrip Sells MedWise Urgent Care To Hospital System

The gas-station convenience store operator QuikTrip Corp. has sold off its 9 MedWise urgent care centers, according to Convenience Store News, effectively exiting the healthcare market. The Saint Francis Health System in Oklahoma has acquired the MedWise centers and will operate them within the health system’s network starting in June, retaining the current staff. While the centers earned Urgent Care Association (UCA) accreditation, growth stalled due to the lack of a hospital network and little …

AMA: Making Progress In Burnout Levels, But EM Docs Still Bear The Brunt

Physician burnout rates are declining nationwide, but overall, burnout is still a serious issue, according to the American Medical Association (AMA). The association’s data shows in 2025, 41.9% of physicians reported experiencing at least 1 symptom of burnout—which is an improvement from the 43.2% reporting burnout in 2024 and 48.2% in 2023. By specialty, the highest rates were reported in emergency medicine (49.8%), urological surgery (49.5%), hematology/oncology (49.3%), obstetrics and gynecology (45.7%), radiology (45.2%), and …

WellNow Openings Coincide With Reduced ED Wait Times In Upstate NY

The expansion of WellNow urgent care centers in upstate New York had a measurable effect on patient health and healthcare system performance, according to a study published in Economics & Human Biology. Results show that the opening of WellNow urgent cares was associated with self-rated health increasing slightly (by about 0.04 on a 5-point scale), and individuals in the community experienced 0.3–0.5 fewer poor physical health days per month. There was no measurable impact on …

QUICKmed In Talks To Expand School Clinic Model To Everyone In Town

Two cities in rural Ohio are sketching out plans with QUICKmed Urgent Care to open multiple center locations that would offer free visits to residents and employees of the businesses located in town, according to a local news outlet. The cities of Girard and Struthers, Ohio, would own the buildings and equipment, while QUICKmed would be responsible for clinical staffing and care delivery. Estimates from city officials put the cost at $1.5 million annually—which would …

Chatbots Practicing Medicine Poorly

In a study of large language models (LLMs) published in Nature Medicine, researchers found chatbots provide inaccurate and inconsistent information to people seeking medical advice, which could pose health risks. What’s more, consumers did not make better health decisions than those who used traditional sources for their information such as internet searches. The randomized trial asked 1,298 participants to identify recommended actions for 10 medical scenarios (eg, developing a severe headache after a night out, …

Older Adults Willing To Drive An Hour For Care

A national survey of 2,650 U.S. adults aged 65 years and older examined how far patients are willing to travel for routine medical care before delaying or skipping appointments, as published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers found the median acceptable travel times were about 68 minutes for primary care, 128 minutes for specialty care, and 113 minutes for diagnostic visits. Higher income, higher education, and the ability to drive oneself were associated with greater willingness …

Ghoshal Tapped As CEO To Continue Experity’s Urgent Care Growth

At its annual Urgent Care Connect conference, Experity CEO David Stern, MD, announced that Bobby Ghoshal has been appointed as the company’s new CEO, and Stern will now lead in the role of executive chairperson of the board. Ghoshal joined Experity as president and chief operating officer in 2025, bringing 30 years of experience in healthcare, technology, operations, and acquisition leadership. He will guide the growth of several AI-driven Experity offerings, including AI Scribe, Care …

Should Nurses Deliver More Care To Address Physician Shortages?

A recent Cochrane review and meta-analysis evaluated the impact of “substituting nurses for physicians” in the hospital setting, based on the rationale that demand for health services is increasing worldwide at a time when there is also a shortage of physicians. Leveraging nurses more could be a way to improve access for many provider organizations. Across 80 randomized studies involving about 28,000 patients in 20 countries, researchers from Ireland, United Kingdom, and Australia found advanced …

ACP: Physicians Are Not ‘Providers’

A new position paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine this month examines the impact on professional and ethical perceptions when the word “provider” is used to describe physicians. The American College of Physicians’ (ACP) Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee, which developed the paper, says that physicians should always be identified as “physicians,” and overall, more specific terminology should replace the word “provider.” Likewise, nonphysicians who deliver care should be called “healthcare professionals” or …

Ranks of Physician Assistants Grow Within Urgent Care

The proportion of physician assistants (PAs) who are working in urgent care increased by 0.5% nationally from 2020 to 2024, according to the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants’ (NCCPA) 2024 annual statistical profile of PAs. About 5.6% of all certified PAs work in an urgent care setting. Only hospitals (42.3%) and office-based private practices (36.4%) show a larger proportion of PAs. Hawaii gained the most urgent care PAs from 2020 to 2024 with …

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