Industry

Hackensack Meridian Health, the largest hospital chain in New Jersey, is merging with Carrier Clinic as the first step in staking a claim in an emerging urgent care “specialty.” Hackensack and Carrier, which specializes in treating patients with substance abuse and mental health issues, will open an urgent care facility specifically for patients with such concerns in Neptune, NJ. The aim will be to offer walk-in care for patients in crisis, largely in order to …

Regular readers of JUCM News know that hospitals have been buying or starting their own urgent care centers in greater numbers in recent years. It’s self-evident that they see it as a good business to enter, but a new article in the Wall Street Journal confirms the economic advantages of keeping patients in-house, instead of referring them out to urgent care centers or specialty practices outside of the hospital’s organization—as in, millions of dollars in …

It’s typical for healthcare providers who are licensed in one state to be permitted to treat patients only in that state. A new set of regulations could open to door to treating patients in multiple states, however—at least virtually. Currently, 24 states belong to the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, which reduces barriers that prohibit providers from treating patients in multiple states if they’re only licensed in one. Physicians do have to apply and pay fees …

It’s not news that there’s a shortage of primary care physicians that is expected to affect both primary care and urgent care practices more and more in the coming years. It’s also well established that advanced practice practitioners (APPs)—nurse practitioners and physician assistants—are being called on to shoulder more of the work load in medical practices of every stripe. A physician-penned opinion piece recently published by The Hill asserts that trend is a viable solution …

On-site urgent care services have been growing in popularity in workplaces for some time, to the extent that occupational medicine is a substantial revenue stream for many urgent care businesses. Now some operators are seeing a similar opportunity in senior living communities. As noted in a recent entry on the Senior Housing News website, Christian Living Communities (CDC), which operates or manages assisted-living, memory care, and life plan communities in Colorado, Utah, and Missouri, brought …

The main focus of a new study just released by ECG Management Consultants may be physician compensation, but buried within the data is an interesting fact about the physician job market. Whereas between 64% and 100% of open physician positions took at least 6 months to fill in four out of five categories, depending on the specialty measured, only 20% of open positions went unfilled for that long in urgent care (the fifth category). ECG’s …

One of Alleghany Health Networks key hospitals saw more patients choose its urgent care centers over its emergency room for the first time ever last year. Saint Vincent Hospital has also seen a steady increase in visits to its primary care offices—again, at the expense of the ED. Saint Vincent President Chris Clark, DO told attendees of the hospital’s annual meeting that’s the outcome of efforts to “do more patient care outside the four walls …

As in other parts of the country, the number of urgent care centers and other walk-in facilities continues to grow in Massachusetts. That’s great news for our industry, but the potential for urgent care to positively affect healthcare spending there has yet to be fulfilled. The problem, also as in some other parts of the country, is that too many people are still going to the emergency room for nonemergent complaints, according to the Commonwealth’s …

CVS Health and Aetna received approval to merge from the Department of Justice this week—provided that Aetna follows through on plans to sell its Medicare Part D business to a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans in order to preserve competition in that market. CVS is already the leader in the Medicare Part D market, with Aetna fifth. The $69 billion deal will blend Aetna’s rich beneficiary data with CVS’s capability to provide point-of-service care, a …

No less than the Wall Street Journal has claimed that “secret deals” hospitals strike with health insurers contribute in a big way to runaway health spending in the United States. In Behind Your Rising Health-Care Bills: Secret Hospital Deals That Squelch Competition, the Journal describes “secret restrictions” such as “anti-steering clauses that prevent insurers from steering patients to less-expensive or higher-quality healthcare providers.” (Certainly urgent care would fall into one, if not both, of those …