Practice Management
Due to supply chain concerns and the ongoing rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in the United States, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it is moving to a weekly allocation cycle for related therapeutics for 3 weeks, starting January 3. HHS says it has stopped allocating bam/ete or Regen-COV to jurisdictions with 80% or more prevalence of the Omicron variant, given that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate …
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This is the second flu season in a row that the healthcare community has held its breath waiting to see if the United States would be hit with dual widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 and influenza (aka, a twindemic). And so far, in spite of another COVID surge fueled by the Omicron variant, so good on that front. However, public health officials here and in other countries are reporting an increase in flurona—or, simultaneous diagnoses of …
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New data from the UK Health Security Agency indicate that booster shot protection against symptomatic COVID-19 caused by the Omicron variant fades within 10 weeks or so. There’s no indication as to whether that means boosters are any more or less successful at preventing severe disease in those who do become infected with the Omicron variant of the virus. The research shows that providing two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine (available in the UK but …
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The Food and Drug Administration officially blessed the practice of providing COVID-19 booster shots to 12- to 15-year-old children, as well as for immunocompromised children between 5 and 11 years of age. In the same announcement, the FDA shortened the recommended interval between initial vaccination and boosters for some patients. Based on “new evidence,” the agency suggests that patients who received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine get a booster shot 5 months after completing …
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Urgent care as an industry is in a precarious position as the COVID-19 pandemic surge rages on. Driven by the most transmissible variant to date, multiple states and major cities are grappling with their largest caseloads yet. Overcrowding in emergency rooms is so bad that hospital administrators and public health officials from Philadelphia to Iowa are recommending that patients stay away from the ED if at all possible and opt to visit their closest urgent …
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HCA Healthcare is making significant investments in the Florida healthcare market, with their latest move being to purchase MD Now Urgent Care. Adding those 59 locations comes on the heels of an announcement in November that the company plans to build three new hospitals in Florida, where it already serves 6.4 million patients through 400 affiliated cites across the state. The company says it’s the largest urgent care provider in Florida. Though just made public, …
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Urgent message: Concern over the potential spread of COVID-19 may (or may not) have affected the timeliness with which parents chose to present with children who had symptoms concerning for acute otitis media, thereby throwing the concept of “delayed” antibiotic prescribing into question. Emily J. Montgomery, MD; Brian R. Lee, PhD, MPH; Amanda Montalbano, MD, MPH; Amanda Nedved, MD Citation: Montgomery RJ, Lee BR, Montalbano A, Nedved A. Time to presentation for acute otitis media …
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With the last days of 2021 winding down, some parts of the country are as deeply embedded in the COVID-19 pandemic as they’ve ever been. In New York City, urgent care centers are seeing up to five times their normal volume while at the same time grappling with staffing shortages (which are at least partially due to the virus to begin with). Patients need care for all the “normal” urgent care complaints while locations are …
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We’re all aware that it can be difficult for some regions of the United States to attract enough top-tier providers to meet the needs of smaller communities. JUCM has been covering this issue for years, in fact (see Rural and Tertiary Markets: The Next Urgent Care Frontier). And that’s during “normal” times. Lack of access, sometimes poor healthcare literacy, and the politicization of COVID-19 has put an inordinate amount of additional stress on rural health …
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The Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s plan to require employers with 100 or more workers to institute a COVID-19 vaccine mandate will go forward after all, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District to reverse a lower-court ruling that blocked the Emergency Temporary Standard. The deadline for implementation is January 10, 2022, leaving urgent care operators who offer occupational medicine services precious little time to help their clients …
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