Practice Management
As new cases of COVID-19 around the country creep up (or skyrocket, depending on where you’re located) it’s evident that there will be a surge in testing for the virus. Inexplicably, urgent care was largely overlooked as a viable partner in widespread testing when the pandemic first took off in the U.S.—but the Urgent Care Association is striving to ensure that doesn’t happen again. UCA has been collecting data on urgent care operators’ testing capabilities, …
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JUCM News readers may recall that Walgreens established a partnership with VillageMD to open primary care clinics in connection with Walgreens locations around the country. The company is moving ahead in a big way now, announcing plans to open between 500 and 700 such clinics over the next 5 years. Besides putting pharmacists and primary care providers in the same location, Walgreens says it will also offer telehealth services and at-home visits under the partnership’s …
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We told you recently about a pair of studies out of China that suggested elevated fasting blood glucose could be a risk factor for severe disease in patients with COVID-19. Now a third study using the same data pool paints an even darker picture, with the authors concluding that a fasting blood glucose level ≥7.0 mmol/L in patients without a previous diagnosis of diabetes is an independent predictor for higher 28-day mortality. The odds ratio …
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Don’t be surprised if patients who have “recovered” from COVID-19 present with concerns that they might not be getting better after all. A research letter just published online by JAMA Network indicates that most patients have persistent symptoms of infection even 60+ days after diagnosis. Based on 143 confirmed cases in Italy, they report that 87.4 of patients complained of at least one symptoms of COVID-19 even after meeting World Health Organization criteria for discontinuing …
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Friction is something to be avoided, typically, whether it’s in coworker relationships, marriage, or even your car’s engine. The same holds true when trying to engage prospective patients in an urgent care center. Anything that adds a burden to the patient’s attempt to get care—unnecessary steps, unexpected waits, billing headaches—will make them think twice about where they choose to get that care. Reducing friction, conversely, gives them a pleasant experience they’re more likely to want …
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The Small Business Administration just released new details of its Paycheck Protection Program—including which businesses (including urgent care centers) will be identified publicly by name; the status of “loan forgiveness” considerations; and extension of the PPP through August 8. The SBA released the names of businesses that borrowed more than $150,000 through the PPP. Businesses that borrowed less remain anonymous. The SBA has not started accepting applications for loan forgiveness yet. Banks that are facilitating …
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Two new studies have shown that elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), whether a patient has been diagnosed with diabetes or not, could be a risk factor for severe illness in patients with COVID-19. Authors of the first study, based on patients at a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China and published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, found an FBG of ≥6.23 mmol/L to be an optimal cutoff for poor prognosis within 30 days of hospital admission, …
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A clearer picture of the effects of COVID-19 on the eyes of infected patients is emerging in new data from Hubei province, China. Researchers there have found ocular manifestations including epiphora, conjunctival congestion, and other conditions occur commonly in patients with confirmed COVID-19. While the retrospective study was small (38 patients), it produced several results that could be helpful to urgent care providers who treat patients without other, more definitive signs of disease. Roughly one …
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The World Health Organization has been at the forefront of proposing how COVID-19 is transmitted, with the main theory being that one person becomes infected by taking in relatively large droplets expelled when someone with the virus coughs, sneezes, speaks, etc. However, 239 scientists from 32 countries signed a letter claiming that even smaller particles can carry the virus—so small that they’re essentially wafting through the air from one side of a room to another, …
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Every American is under additional stress these days, whether it’s due to having to adapt to a new way of working, the strain of social isolation, worry over an at-risk family member, or illness itself. That burden is multiplied for urgent care providers and other clinicians, of course, as they’re on the frontlines of the crisis. An article just published in the journal Sleep and Breathing suggests there is a causal link between COVID-19 and …
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