Practice Management
You can save yourself major headaches—and maybe even a lot of bad press—by ensuring the payment terms your urgent care operation accepts are well known to your patients. Ensuring your staff knows how to communicate clearly and compassionately with people who come to your locations for care will go a long way toward keeping the peace even when conflicts occur, too. That message may arrive a little too late for one Massachusetts urgent care center, …
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People will continue to get sick, and probably stand a greater chance of being injured, during times of extreme weather like Hurricane Florence. Healthcare organizations in areas expecting to be affected are already getting the word out that they’ll be available to help those who need medical care. UNC Health Care, a North Carolina medical network, is one of them; they’re waving their $49 fee for online urgent care services during the storm period. Free …
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Predictions for widespread destruction of property and threats to human life are everywhere as Hurricane Florence takes aim at the southeastern coast of the United States, with North Carolina and South Carolina expected to take the biggest hit. Unfortunately, according to a new survey released by DrFirst, many healthcare organizations say they lack confidence in their own disaster preparedness. And it’s not because they think they’re immune; 68% of respondents from acute, ambulatory, hospice, and …
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In trying to fight the ongoing, nationwide opioid crisis, researchers are working to find new options that will ease patients’ pain without putting them at risk for addiction. The most recent effort was a study, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, of adult emergency room patients who were given either 1 mg intravenous hydromorphone or 1 g intravenous acetaminophen for acute pain. The primary outcome of this prospective, randomized, clinical trial was between-group difference …
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Most children who show up in the pediatric emergency department (PED) have a “regular” pediatrician or primary care physician—but not necessarily access to those physicians at times their parents think it’s absolutely necessary for their child to see a doctor, say the authors of a new article published in Pediatric Emergency Care. This leads to a two-fold problem: First, overcrowding in PEDs and, ultimately, diminished quality of care, according to their data. Second, as is …
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It’s well established that obstructive sleep apnea and dyslipidemia are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Now, new research shows evidence of a connection between the two. A cross-sectional analysis of 8,592 patients in the European Sleep Apnea Database turned up a dose response relationship between total cholesterol and oxygen desaturation index (ODI). Breaking down the total cholesterol finding further, triglycerides and LDL concentrations were predicted better by apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) than by ODI. HDL was …
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A man who reported to a Kansas City-area urgent care center with an open wound on the bottom of his foot—and who ended up losing his leg when his cellulitis worsened and he ultimately developed gangrene and sepsis—is suing the physician who first saw him, alleging that she failed to prescribe the right antibiotic, never cultured his wound, and declined to order any lab work whatsoever. The suit claims the doctor prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics that …
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The increase in urgent care visits across the U.S. shows no signs of slowing down—and that seems directly correlated to a decline in emergency room visits, according to an article just published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Informed by data from Aetna, the article notes that urgent care visits by commercially insured Americans grew 119% between 2008 and 2015, at the same time ED visits for low-severity conditions shrunk by 36%. Lead author Sabrina Poon, MD …
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Roughly 800,000 children are brought to emergency rooms after sustaining a blow to the head every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Clearly, many others appear in urgent care centers—and that segment is likely to grow as parents continue to become more aware that urgent care is often the best choice for many complaints. Now the CDC has released new guidelines on evaluation and treatment of children who’ve sustained a blow …
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Labor Day weekend can signal a chaotic time of year as families scramble to squeeze in one more summertime adventure—sometimes overlooking the fact that their children have to get a check-up for fall sports or to make sure their immunization history is up to date. Promoting your capability to take care of that on shorter notice than a typical pediatric or primary care office could both help them out and land your operation more repeat …
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