Practice Management
The Department of Veteran Affairs has loosened its regulations about where veterans can seek care considerably in the past couple of years. In certain conditions, such as distance from or availability of care at a VA facility, they can head straight to a walk-in clinic without preauthorization. The Urgent Care Association took notice—close notice, in fact, and is urging the VA to tweak the policy. While the idea of allowing the patients it covers to …
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Urgent care’s roots are in entrepreneurial physicians who felt there was a better way to practice medicine, and blazed a new path that led to the industry we see today. As urgent care veterans know, though, it wasn’t too long before health systems recognized that a) the model really does work and b) urgent care was creeping in on their territory. So, they started buying up existing urgent care operations or starting their own. Consequently, …
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Physician assistants and nurse practitioners—or, collectively, advanced practice providers (APPs)—already play an integral role in urgent care medicine, and are taking on more and more responsibility in many settings. Lately, some states have started taking a closer look at how much physician oversight they really need, opting to give them more independence. As with most change in any walk of life, however, there’s another side to the coin. A new post on the HealthLeaders website …
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Urgent care veterans—and any patient whose been hit with a surprise bill—know that the cost of urgent care is far lower than the cost of a trip to a freestanding emergency room, even when the resultant diagnoses are the same. And yet, the vast majority of visits to freestanding EDs are related to nonemergent complaints that could be safely managed in an urgent care center at a fraction of the cost. UnitedHealthGroup just added more …
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When Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued a call for recommendations on how to lower the cost of healthcare in the United States, the Urgent Care Association put together a response packed with data on the relative merits of urgent care, both in terms of the quality of care and the dramatically lower cost compared with freestanding emergency rooms and hospital-based EDs. UCA suggested that a …
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Intermountain started trying to discourage drugseekers from preying on its urgent care centers years ago, before opioid abuse was recognized as the crisis it is today. It’s no surprise, then, that the company launched a successful internal campaign to lower the number of opioid prescriptions its providers issued. However, the 30% reduction they just announced is unsatisfactory in their own eyes, having set a goal of reducing them by 40%. So, the company has vowed …
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Whether they’re familiar with urgent care or not—and definitely if they’re not familiar with your urgent care operation—people may have a little anxiety about seeing a new medical facility move into their neighborhood. Yes, it’s always nice to have convenient access to healthcare, but how will traffic be affected? And exactly what type of patients are they going to attract, anyway? Making a good first impression will not only set minds at ease, but also …
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It’s a plain demographic fact that the segment of the U.S. population over the age of 65 is growing—and that it will continue to do so for years to come. It’s also been proven that seniors account for more healthcare spending than younger patients. In fact, they make up around 15% of the population right now, but contribute over 21% to healthcare costs. What’s more, seniors visit the emergency room more frequently and stay there …
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Just as the United States House of Representatives held hearings to explore ways to encourage more people to get vaccinated against measles—acknowledging that fear over mythical side effects makes a significant impact—a new study in Denmark provides further scientific proof that there is no link between vaccines and autism. The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, focused on 657,461 children, some of whom were unvaccinated per their parents’ wishes and some of whom …
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Urgent care providers are well trained, well educated, and well prepared to treat patients with a wide array of complaints. One of the challenges is, there are still a great many people who don’t know that. The same holds true for employers in your area, who also may not realize that many urgent care centers offer occupational medicine services. Advertising, marketing campaigns, cold calls, and signage are all good ways to try to reach them, …
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