Practice Management
Legislation under consideration by Massachusetts lawmakers purports to help patients gain access to quality care more easily—the actual title of the bill is the Act to Enhance Access to High Quality, Affordable and Transparent Healthcare, after all. Critics are concerned that it will actually have the opposite effect when it comes to urgent care, however, citing several components of the bill as currently written: An 8.75% tax on the total dollar amount of an urgent …
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Legislators in New Jersey have passed legislation aimed at increasing the transparency of health care prices, especially fees for services rendered by out-of-network providers. When it takes effect less than 90 days from now, healthcare facilities and providers will be required to give patients information on network status prior to delivering nonemergent or nonurgent care. That last stipulation is what should be of interest to urgent care operators: The law says care provided on an …
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Florida Gov. Rick Scott just signed new legislation into effect limiting the amount of opioid pain relievers physicians can write at one time. As other states have done, and as has been discussed at the federal level, the bill will limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain to a 3-day supply, though Florida prescribers will have the option of writing for a 7-day supply if medically necessary. The law will require prescribers to check the state’s …
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The White House and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are promoting a move toward greater patient ownership of their own medical records—which would also bolster interoperability among providers, they say. If the MyHealthEData initiative is successful, its proponents say it could help save some of the 400,000 lives lost annually because providers don’t have timely access to a patient’s complete medical history. CMS Director Seema Verma framed the plan in the context of …
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Efforts to reduce access to opioid medications for acute pain have varied greatly from state to state, in spite of President Trump’s declaration that related addiction and deaths constitute a public health emergency. Now, a bipartisan bill just introduced in Congress would impose a national policy if it passes, restricting prescriptions for opioids for acute pain to 3 days (ample for the urgent care setting). Significantly, the bill would also authorize adding $1 billion to …
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Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield raised the ire of hospitals, some physicians, and patient-advocacy groups when it enacted a policy of denying claims for ED visits it eventually deems to have been nonemergent. A new bill in Ohio would put a stop to that practice as it now exists, on the grounds that the policy amounts to noncompliance with state insurance regulations. As such, Anthem would lose standing to secure state government contracts, as well …
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West Virginia and Florida are the latest states to seek a legislative solution to the nation’s ongoing crisis of opioid misuse, abuse, and related deaths. In West Virginia, the state senate just voted unanimously to limit new painkiller prescriptions for most patients to a 7-day supply, though the number would be lower for urgent care centers and emergency rooms (4 days) and for dentists and ophthalmologists (3 days). Florida is looking at a bill that …
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A proposed new law could increase employers’ reliance on contractors who conduct worker drug screens—such as urgent care providers who offer occupational medicine services—if passed by state legislators in Maine. The bill would give employers more power to order drug screens for workers by loosening probable-cause requirements and permitting employers to order a test after a single workplace mishap or other signs of impairment. The bill’s proponents say the laws on the books haven’t kept …
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When President Trump took office, he vowed to take steps to make life easier for business operators. The White House just announced one step in that direction would be reversing an Obama administration decision to make employers, including urgent care operators, report how much they paid workers and break down the data by gender, race, and ethnicity. Obama believed doing so would help quantify (and ultimately curb) pay discrimination, while Trump maintains that the process …
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Connecticut lawmakers apparently think “If at first you don’t succeed…” is the perfect approach to slapping licensing fees on the urgent care industry. Democrats in the state House of Representatives have inserted a provision in the current proposed budget that would require all urgent care centers there to carry a distinct license. The problem (for them) is, they don’t have an abiding definition of what constitutes an urgent care center. Currently, the law views urgent …
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