Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care Physicians See Demand—and Salaries—Skyrocket

The laws of supply-and-demand have taken a liking to physicians just entering the work force—and the bounty seems especially rich in urgent care. We told you recently that physician shortages have some states offering incentives to draw newly minted docs to their neighborhoods. Now the 2016 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives reveals that “starting salaries for both primary care and specialist physicians spiked in the last 12 months.” Of particular interest, urgent …

AFC Doctors Express Goes All-In on Urgent Care Branding

American Family Care is putting all its clinics in the proverbial urgent care basket; the company’s 160+ locations, currently flying the AFC Doctors Express banner, will be rebranded under the name AFC Urgent Care. A new logo will come along with the name, but the locations will retain the same doctors and other staff, offer the same hours, accept the same insurance plans, and maintain current copays. Each will also continue to operate under local …

Are Insurers Punishing Providers for Being Out-of-Network?

A community hospital in California says Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia is punishing it for being out-of-network by paying patients directly for emergency services received at the hospital, rather than reimbursing the hospital. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital is taking the matter to court, charging that the Georgia BCBS plan is trying to pressure the hospital, unfairly, to accept its contract rates. The suit further claims that by paying patients directly, the …

Opportunity is Ripe for Urgent Care to Plug Holes in Access to Care

With an ongoing physician shortage expected to get worse in the coming years, the flexibility and cost advantages offered by urgent care could improve access to quality care for many while strengthening the industry’s place in the continuum of care. Rural areas are being hit especially hard, as are states with higher concentrations of minorities. Savvy urgent care operators will look to those areas when considering new locations. Some states are even willing to sweeten …

Urgent Care Surges in Southeast Michigan

Southeast Michigan is seeing a surge of urgent care growth this spring—and industry watchers are saying operators can thank President Obama, in a roundabout way. Regional growth started to pick up speed after the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) was passed in 2010, fueled by an influx of newly insured patients who need care immediately, but who may have been steered into urgent care by employers hoping to stem rising emergency room bills. With …

Bucking a Trend, Pharmacy Will Offer Urgent Care, Not Retail-Level Services

The knock on retail clinics like those found in retail chains and big-box stores is that they offer a limited menu of services, administered most often by nonphysicians. One pharmacy is bucking that trend by bringing a physician into the fold to create a hybrid community drugstore/ urgent care center that provides a higher level of care in a proper exam room. Sona Pharmacy + Clinic in Asheville, NC bills itself as “a different kind …

Could Tax Dollars Be an Option in Funding a New Urgent Care Center?

If you’re looking to build a new urgent care facility, the first question you’re likely to ask is: How are we going to pay for this? Regional Medical Center (RMC) in Orangeburg, SC is looking to its surrounding community for help by way of using tax dollars to construct a new urgent care center. Brenda Williams, RMC’s vice president of strategy and development, says the emergency room is packed with people seeking nonemergent care. RMC …

PCPs Starting to See the Advantages of Urgent Care

More primary care physicians understand urgent care’s rightful place in the continuum of care—and the advantages it might offer traditional office-based practices, according to a new article in Medical Economics magazine (How Urgent Care Relates to Physicians’ Practices, http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/how-urgent-care-relates-physicians-practices). David Meyers, MD, chief medical officer for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, reflects that “urgent care centers help put resources in the right places” by providing immediate care to those who need it at …

Urgent Care Survey: Baby Boomers Want Quality; Millennials Consider Cost More

Most Americans understand their healthcare options, but diverse age groups value different attributes when deciding where to get that care, according to a new survey by the Urgent Care Association of America. Quality factors, such as having a physician on site (a prevalent urgent care attribute compared with retail clinics more often staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants), were more important to patients in older age groups, while affordability and location were more important …

CMS Chief: Healthcare.gov ‘Failed Millions’

Acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Andy Slavitt has acknowledged that Healthcare.gov, the platform through which previously uninsured Americans have accessed coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”), has “failed millions” since its launch more than 2 years ago. While he claims inherent problems in the system have been fixed, he says he recognizes the consequences of clunky EHR systems, low reimbursements, burnout, and various compliance requirements for primary care providers—consequences …

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