Practice Management
Not along ago, we shared the story of a Grosse Pointe, MI urgent care operator that was losing patients due to an overflow parking situation in the retail center where they were located. They were allotted a certain number of spots according to the terms of their lease, but those spaces were too often used by patrons of a neighboring athletic facility. Beaumont Urgent Care thought putting up signs indicating which parking spaces were “theirs” …
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Literally every day international health officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state health departments issue new statements about suspected or confirmed cases of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), possible routes of transmission, and the precautions thought to be helpful in stemming its spread. The CDC updates its dedicated 2019-nCoV webpage as needed and should be considered the most reliable source of solid information on the virus itself, but the Urgent Care Association has …
Read MoreIt’s a popular, but trite, tribute to say someone “wrote the book on [fill in the blank].” It’s usually not a statement of fact, however. A rare exception would be to say, “Peter Rosen wrote the book on emergency medicine” because, in fact, Peter Rosen, MD really was responsible for the first comprehensive textbook in emergency medicine (Rosen’s Emergency Management: Concepts and Clinical Practice, the first edition of which was published in 1983). A …
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In weighing whether an opioid prescription was warranted for a given patient, it’s likely that you were guided one way or the other by your electronic health record system. If that system was linked to the $145 million settlement levied against Allscripts-owned Practice Fusion by the Department of Justice, you may have been duped into thinking writing for an opioid was warranted when it might not have been. Given that Practice Fusion describes its offerings …
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You don’t hear much about urgent care–emergency room “hybrid” locations—unless you happen to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Albuquerque, or Indianapolis market, where they’re starting to become more common. Like urgent care, the UCC/ED combo locations (wherein an urgent care center and a freestanding ED are “co-located” on the same property) have gotten the attention of real estate professionals who recognize a perfect pairing between businesses looking for a lease and high-traffic shopping centers. Healthcare …
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Recognizing both an increase in incidence of sexually transmitted disease and patient preference for where they seek treatment for STDs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a new set of guidelines on the subject. While previous guidelines, such as those put forth by the CDC in 2015, still reflect current thinking on treatment, the new set, dubbed Recommendations for Providing Quality Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinical Services, 2020, address a general approach to …
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After seemingly taking a month off to celebrate the winter holidays, legislators in Massachusetts are again making noise about imposing regulations and licensure standards on urgent care operators in the Commonwealth. An article published by The Boston Globe, headlined State Seeks to Rein In Largely Unregulated Urgent Care Industry, Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders bemoans “there is no standardized definition or structure” for urgent care and that “in terms of consumer …
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A new Gallup poll reveals that fewer Americans are convinced parents should get their children vaccinated as time goes on, and it appears that lack of education could be a key factor. According to the new study, 84% of 1,025 randomly sampled adults believe it is “extremely or very important” for parents to ensure their children receive recommended vaccinations. In 2001, the last time such data were collected, 94% thought so. One clue as why …
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The story of a young woman who died after leaving the emergency room to get faster care at an urgent care center in Wisconsin recently continues to make headlines. The 25-year-old reported to the ED with chest pains and shortness of breath. She was actually seen in fairly short order; x-rays showed an enlarged heart and she was sent back to the waiting room—where she waited for more than 2 hours. Fed up and nervous …
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The good news is that prescribers in emergency rooms seem to be getting the message that opioid medications have been overprescribed for too long, contributing to widespread addiction and increasing deaths by overdose and suicide. According to data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid prescriptions originating in the ED dropped by nearly one third between 2006–2007 and 2016–2017—reversing a 5-year upward trend. Decreases were highest among visits by younger adults …
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