Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

American Well Buys Avizia—with More Attention to Urgent Care Expected

Healthcare merger-mania hasn’t forgotten about the telehealth business, as American Well revealed that it will acquire Avizia. The appeal for American Well will be to expand its acute care offerings, as Avizia’s hospital-based business reflects more than 40 clinical specialties, including telestroke and telebehavioral health services. At the same time, Avizia said it expects that the newly expanded company “will offer…[an] enterprise telehealth platform for urgent care, chronic disease management, acute care, and postacute care.” …

TRICARE Offers Nonfinancial Incentives to Push Patients to Urgent Care

Due to its oversight by the federal government, TRICARE is challenged with limitations that don’t apply to most insurers—one being that they’re not able to offer some of the economic incentives commonly used to push patients to lower-cost care settings. At the same time, the military insurer is held to the same (or higher) standard for keeping costs under control. One strategy its administrators have come up with is a familiar one: Get patients to …

New App Helps Patients Choose Among Urgent Care and Other Care Settings

More choices can often lead to more indecision for patients who need same-day medical care. While many have gotten the message the emergency room should be reserved for emergencies, it’s still an option. Some insurers (like Anthem) are making it tough on patients who make the “wrong” decision by refusing to pick up the tab for some ED visits if they’re later deemed to have been nonemergent. A new app developed by a pair of …

Article Highlights Migration from Traditional Primary Care to Urgent Care

The ongoing growth of urgent care, among other trends, is at least partially responsible for an increasing scarcity of traditional primary care physicians, according to analysis of new data posted to Advisory Board. Citing research by the Health Care Cost Institute and an article just published in The New York Times, the piece notes that “the emergence of urgent care centers and retail clinics, as well as proliferating mergers between healthcare providers” is lowering patients’ …

California Takes Sutter Health to Court Over Healthcare Costs

Sutter Health, which counts 32 urgent care clinics, 24 hospitals, and 35 surgery centers among its vast holdings, is the target of a lawsuit from the California attorney general, charging that it engages in anticompetitive practices that drive up prices for consumers and insurers. The suit is also viewed as an indictment of industry consolidation, which is resulting in fewer entities and less competition. While it has declined to comment on the suit specifically, Sutter …

Is it Time to Retire the Pain Scale?

Depending on who you listen to, responsibility for the opioid crisis in the United States lies with “Big Pharma,” physicians, patients, insurance companies…all of which is true to some extent. It’s a complex problem borne out of a legitimate need to help ease the pain of patients who are suffering. However, a new KevinMD blog post suggests that removing a very noncomplex tool—the pain scale—from patient interactions may be a big step in rebooting how …

‘mHealth’ May Simplify (and Improve) Patient Follow-Up

Patients visit your urgent care center because they know they can get excellent care without waiting days for an appointment or languishing for hours in the waiting room. So why do so many seem to disregard your advice for postdischarge care or follow-up just as promptly? Before you shrug and file that in the “just one of those things” folder, bear in mind that your helping them to follow through may cement their positive experience …

New Data Highlight Where Clinicians Can Focus on Controllable Risk Factors

Data published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association point to a need for all clinicians to focus on controllable risk factors for disease and mortality. For urgent care clinicians, that may mean being assertive in probing for patient habits that could be contributing factors related to their presenting to you on a given day. The article points out wide differences in the burden of disease from state to state, attributed to key …

Tread Lightly When Commenting on Other Clinicians’ Capabilities—or Face the Consequences

Honest, respectful feedback can spur subordinates, superiors, and coworkers to do their best work. Comments that could be perceived as overly critical or, especially, bullying are both divisive and potentially harmful to all parties concerned, however. A recent blog post on the website DoctorDiscourse illustrates this in painful detail. It recounts how three physicians at three unrelated facilities lost their jobs or believe they were “blackballed” for seeming to discount the contributions or capabilities of …

Beware: Opiate Prescriptions Are Under Extra Scrutiny

No-see opiate prescriptions have cost an urgent care physician in Burlington County, NJ his medical license—which he willfully surrendered in order to avoid paying penalties and fees totaling over $127,000. The state had already suspended his license temporarily after accusing him of prescribing narcotic pain medications to patients he didn’t examine over a 5-year period. If he violates the consent order he agreed to, he will have to pay the money immediately and face additional …

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