Practice Management
Patients can get flu shots—and now, COVID-19 vaccines—in a lot of locations other than your urgent care center. And certainly providing a couple of vaccines is not going to be a significant revenue stream. However, with so many people still in need of both, encouraging as many of them as possible to receive both vaccines could be viewed as a public service—and one that could help introduce you to countless families who could become long-term …
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As we’ve told you recently, weeks- (or even months-) long waits for primary care appointments are forcing more patients to consider whether a trip to urgent care for ongoing concerns would be a wiser choice. With senior citizens among them, it would also be wise for you to consider whether you’re on point with optimal coding practices for cognitive assessments—which are required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at annual wellness visits for …
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Low awareness of potentially lifesaving preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV may be leaving Black, Hispanic, and Latino patients at a disproportionate risk for illness and death compared with other patient populations according to an analysis of National HIV Prevention Program Monitoring and Evaluation data published recently by JAMA Network. Hispanic and Latino people make up 18% of the U.S. population but accounted for 29% of new U.S. HIV diagnoses between 2015 and 2019. Black Americans …
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While some employers are content to maintain remote or hybrid work situations for their workers, either because of strong stances by those employees or out of ongoing concern for COVID-19, others are pushing to repopulate the expensive buildings they’re paying for. The concern, of course, is that more exposure to each other could equate to more exposure to COVID-19 and increased risk for disease among the work force. So far, however, the risk among office …
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Walmart has been trying any number of tactics, for years, to become known as a reliable destination for immediate healthcare needs, essentially aspiring to become a rival of urgent care centers in their communities. As JUCM News readers know, one of their most recent efforts saw Walmart Health fail to land in 20 locations (which would have only constituted 0.004% of their 4,700 U.S. anyway). That was followed by a mass exodus by upper management …
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Despite increased emphasis on public education on the dangers of vaping various substances, the “past 12 months” prevalence of cannabis vaping by adolescents more than doubled between 2013 and 2020 (from 6.1% to 13.6%) according to an article published by JAMA Pediatrics. The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 17 unique studies from the United States and Canada, reflecting the experiences of 198,845 adolescents. They also discovered that preference for cannabis products seems …
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Efficiency and accessibility have always been two key attributes that set urgent care apart from traditional primary care. With primary care providers in short supply these days, however, some healthcare consumers are finding urgent care centers to be essential to meeting their needs. Action News Now reported the story of one such family in Redding, CA, who found it next-to impossible to find a new PCP for their 80-year-old matriarch who had recently relocated to …
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Research continues to support the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and to disprove the perceived likelihood of many dangers associated with them. Most recently, a Research Letter published by JAMA Network takes aim at the misperception that pregnant women who receive a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine are at increased risk for spontaneous abortion. Looking at 105,446 unique pregnancies at eight U.S. health systems, the researchers found that “among women with spontaneous abortions, the odds of COVID-19 vaccine exposure …
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At this point, you’ve probably heard that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that children 5- to 11-years-old be vaccinated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer pediatric vaccine. What may be news is the sense of urgency the CDC is exhibiting in sharing the news, with the agency suggesting in a statement that healthcare providers “begin vaccinating them as soon as possible.” While the perception of the public (and some public officials) …
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Many patients with diabetes loathe being called “diabetics” and people with autism may blanch at being called “autistic.” And studies, some reported on in JUCM News, have shown that the words a healthcare provider chooses actually influence outcomes. Using patient-first language (eg, “a patient with diabetes”) is a good first step toward a productive clinical relationship, whereas putting the disease first (“the diabetic patient”) can leave someone feeling demeaned or paint the clinician as uncaring, …
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