Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Bill Could Provide Some Urgent Care Operators with Loans to Reduce Impact of Pandemic

Some urgent care operators are seeing patient visits—and associated revenue—dwindle as people heed advice to stay home, where they’re less inclined to get sick or injured. As this period of self-isolation continues, they may be forced to consider cutting back on staff—or worse. However, U.S. Senate Bill 3548, also known as the CARES Act, would provide bridge loans to companies with fewer than 500 employees. The bill is expected to be passed by the House …

Virginia Lawmakers OK Ambulance Transport Directly to Urgent Care—but There’s a Catch

The state legislature in Virginia just passed a bill that enables ambulances to transport patients directly to 24-hour urgent care centers and other nonhospital healthcare facilities when clinically appropriate. While clearly that indicates recognition that urgent care centers offer care on par with the ED, short of life- or limb-threatening emergencies, the interesting thing is that only one urgent care operator, Kaiser Permanents, runs facilities that are open 24 hours a day in the Commonwealth. …

Massachusetts Hospitals Push for More State Control of Urgent Care

We told you recently that legislators in Massachusetts have again picked up efforts to impose new regulations and licensing standards on urgent care operators there—all of which would result in operators paying more to the state, of course. The crux of the argument is whether urgent care centers operate more like hospitals (in which case they would have to be licensed as such) or like physician offices. Now the president and CEO of the Massachusetts …

Update: Massachusetts Is Amping Up the Rhetoric to Regulate Urgent Care Again

After seemingly taking a month off to celebrate the winter holidays, legislators in Massachusetts are again making noise about imposing regulations and licensure standards on urgent care operators in the Commonwealth. An article published by The Boston Globe, headlined State Seeks to Rein In Largely Unregulated Urgent Care Industry, Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders bemoans “there is no standardized definition or structure” for urgent care and that “in terms of consumer …

Massachusetts Bill Aims to Define Urgent Care—and Mandate Licensing

Among the key points in the healthcare bill introduced by Massachusetts Governor Charles Baker are efforts to settle on a core definition of urgent care, but also steps to require urgent care centers to be “licensed” by the state and provide mental health services, meet certain primary care standards, and accept MassHealth members. Those elements of the bill, H. 4134, are a nod to the growing influence of urgent care (and retail clinics) in Massachusetts, …

Does Assembly Bill 5 Doom Locum Tenens in California?

Here’s the fact: California legislators approved a bill (Assembly Bill 5, or AB 5) that will reclassify “gig” workers from contractors to employees. Now here’s the fear: AB 5 will essentially doom the concept of locum tenens clinicians in the state. The bill was conceived as a way for gig workers to get benefits from the companies they contract with—though coverage of the bill has largely focused on app-based transportation companies Uber and Lyft. The …

Push to Make Healthcare Costs More Transparent Could Only Boost Urgent Care Further

The Department of Health and Human Services seems to be following President Trump’s call to make healthcare pricing more transparent, according to an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal—a move which, if it comes to fruition, would likely boost urgent care’s reputation as a lower cost alternative than the emergency room. Most recently, the DOH issued a call for public comment on whether patients should know the “true” cost of care before they …

If Ambulances Can Bring Patients to Urgent Care, Why Not Ride-Share Services?

We told you recently about a new program in which ambulances may be used to transport Medicare patients not only to the hospital, but to urgent care centers in response to 911 calls that wind up to be nonemergent. This begs the question: Could rideshare services be employed to carry out the same vital function? Such has been raised in the Texas legislature, as detailed in an article just published in the Houston Chronicle. The …

What’s in a Name? Plenty, UCA Tells the VA

The Department of Veteran Affairs has loosened its regulations about where veterans can seek care considerably in the past couple of years. In certain conditions, such as distance from or availability of care at a VA facility, they can head straight to a walk-in clinic without preauthorization. The Urgent Care Association took notice—close notice, in fact, and is urging the VA to tweak the policy. While the idea of allowing the patients it covers to …

Senate Committee Chair Asks for Ideas to Lower Health Costs, and UCA Obliges

When Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued a call for recommendations on how to lower the cost of healthcare in the United States, the Urgent Care Association put together a response packed with data on the relative merits of urgent care, both in terms of the quality of care and the dramatically lower cost compared with freestanding emergency rooms and hospital-based EDs. UCA suggested that a …