Practice Management
The United States passed an unfortunate milestone this week when the number of confirmed measles cases reached 1,000 (and surpassed it actually, to 1,001). It’s the worst outbreak since 1992 and comes 19 years after measles was declared “eliminated” in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports there have been 61 new cases since May 27 alone. Recognizing that public appeals to get vaccinated were falling on deaf ears too often, …
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Urgent care has been heralded for its patient-friendly (many would even say consumer-friendly) approach to providing quality care. Patients respond well to it because it’s such a contrast to what they’ve become accustomed to: long waits, brusk treatment, and generally feeling like they’re being rushed through a very important and personal experience. Having seen how well the new approach works, however, more traditional healthcare facilities are now jumping on the consumerism bandwagon. Some health systems …
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Urgent care centers are busy places. Clinical staff, in particular, have their work cut out for them when it comes to providing fast, quality care on a moment’s notice. Sometimes, though, making extra time for people who don’t need care can have long-lasting benefits—for that individual, their family, and the urgent care center. eMedical Urgent Care in Berkeley Heights, NJ, for one, seems to have embraced that notion. When the town threw a spring block …
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Every patient covets convenience and speed when they make choices about where to seek immediate care. Urgent care and retail clinics both offer those attributes. Just as much (if not more), though, patients want to know they’re going to get the quality of care they need—and that’s where they see a difference between retail and urgent care, according to a new study from WD Partners. The research actually compared those two segments along with primary …
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For urgent care operators who offer occupational medicine services, the value of those services is self-evident. Likewise, businesses that already count themselves as occ med clients are likely to recognize the benefits for their employees and their own operations. So, where’s the disconnect for those businesses who “don’t need” an occ med provider? The answer may be that they simply don’t get it, if an article posted recently by Personnel Today is any indication. “Many …
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Telemedicine is a hot topic in urgent care circles these days. Some industry leaders herald it as a new way to reach patients and to extend an operation’s reach; skeptics express concern that it’s an obstacle to building a healthy provider–patient relationship and that it facilitates overprescribing. While some of this boils down to a difference of opinion, evidence is mounting that both arguments have merit. A new study out of the University of Pittsburgh …
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The latest version of the International Classification of Diseases from the World Health Organization has a startling new entry: for the first time, it officially classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon. Previous editions have referred to burnout as a “state of vital exhaustion” but stopped short of linking it to the workplace. Now the WHO describes burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” including the …
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A pair of data breaches at two lab test companies exposed information relating to more than 19 million consumers this week. First, Quest Diagnostics admitted it experienced a breach that exposed 12 million patients’ information; a day later, LabCorp revealed a breach affecting 7.7 million people. In the latter case, the company said the breach occurred at a third-party collections firm called American Medical Collections Agency (AMCA) between August 1, 2018 and March 30, 2019. …
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JUCM readers know urgent care is a frequent destination for patients who’ve experienced a blow to the head that could have caused mild traumatic brain injury—with children being brought in by parents of particular concern. The operators of Westex Urgent Care in Texas not only recognized that, as well, but have mobilized their resources to get on the prevention side. Westex recently took part in a Texas Medical Association initiative to provide bicycle helmets, free …
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Some “experts” in both the insurance and healthcare industries may have been skeptical when UnitedHealth Group’s Optima division bought MedExpress a few years ago. Others predicted that the insurance giant would likely look for ways to deliver deeper healthcare services to their own plan members. They were right. MedExpress is now the largest urgent care chain in the country. UHG expects even bigger things to come, however—projecting that MedExpress will help push its OptumCare medical …
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