Practice Management
As the constant waxing and waning of COVID-19 rates in the United States continues, a pair of relatively newly identified subvariants of Omicron are suddenly being blamed for a growing proportion of new cases. BA.4 and BA.5 accounted for 5.4% and 7.4% of new cases, respectively, in the most recently weekly recap from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After first being identified in South Africa, the pair have been gaining ground in the …
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As kids are wrapping up the school year and Americans are making plans for summer getaways and attending festivals and other large gatherings, rates of COVID-19 infection are once again creeping up in various parts of the country. In fact, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seem to indicate that the rate of infection may be almost twice as high in boosted individuals than in those who have been vaccinated but not …
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After a few weeks of feeling like we’re moving in the right direction in winning the fight against COVID-19, it appears that the United States is instead sinking back into familiar, if unfortunate, territory. As noted by experts from Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Harvard universities quoted in a report from USA Today, however, indications are that we will fare far better than in summers past. For one thing, hospitalizations are lower than in previous waves, …
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just increased the alert level for monkeypox to 2, indicating that the risk of infection is high enough to warrant wearing a mask while traveling. The virus has been confirmed in this country after previously being reported in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. While it has been reported that infection has occurred more frequently among men who have sex with men compared with other groups, spread …
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Patients are unlikely to seek ongoing care for high blood pressure at their closest urgent care center. That doesn’t mean it won’t be first identified there, though. And depending on the patient’s age and life expectancy, your ability to flag which patient’s hypertension needs attention and who wouldn’t benefit from treatment could mean a significant difference in the outcome. According to an article just published by JAMA Internal Medicine, intensive treatment for hypertension “may be …
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Many, if not most, healthcare operations have suffered along with other types of business since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the general public might assume hospitals are an exception, it’s becoming increasingly clear that healthcare systems in general are struggling as much as (if not more than) others. And even though we all know how hard urgent care has been hit over the past few years, a new report published by Healthcare Finance …
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Physician assistants and nurse practitioners (collectively referred to as advanced practice clinicians, or APCs) are becoming more and more essential to the efficient operation of an urgent care center. And with the likelihood of a physician shortage growing with each passing year, you can expect that to be the case for the foreseeable future. As such, you will want to hang on to the cream of the crop. Do you even know what your superstar …
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Recognizing that SARS-CoV-2 is a virus, there’s no way well-informed physicians would write prescriptions for antibiotics to help patients fight COVID-19—right? Wrong. According to a Research Letter published by JAMA Network, between April 2020 and April 2021, nearly 30% of COVID-19 outpatient visits in a Medicare population resulted in a prescription for an antibiotic agent. Prescriptions were highest in the emergency room (33.9%) followed by telehealth (28.4%), urgent care (25.8%), and traditional office practices (23.9%). …
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Failing to Follow Consultation Protocols Could Bring Headaches—and Affect Patient Outcomes An urgent care provider in Chillicothe, OH has been flagged by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General allegedly for failing to follow the prescribed consultation process. Per a post by EHR Intelligence, the OIG claims that the provider intended for a patient with a T12 vertebrae compression fracture to receive chiropractic care at the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) clinic. …
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One of the more persistent baseless “warnings” about vaccination against the COVID-19 virus has been that getting the shot increases risk for (or even causes) myocarditis and other cardiological issues. JUCM Readers know that while early studies tended to contradict each other, ultimately the myocarditis myth has been busted. Now a new paper published by Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reveals that patients are more likely to develop cardiac complications in general after SARS-CoV-2 than …
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