Practice Management
Pardee UNC Health Care in North Carolina and WVU Medicine in West Virginia are among the hospitals and systems advising area residents to make full use of local urgent care centers as flu cases mount, slamming emergency rooms with more visitors than they can handle efficiently. Pardee is pleading with area residents who have flu-like symptoms—or any non–life-threatening complaint—to stay away from the ED and instead visit one of its urgent care facilities. In getting …
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will order changes to labeling information for opioid cough and cold medications to limit their use to adults aged 18 years and older. It will also require that new safety information be added to highlight the risk for addiction, abuse, overdose, and other dangerous potential side effects for all patients. Codeine-containing products like Tuxarin ER and Tuzistra ER, as well as products that contain hydrocodone (eg, Flowtuss, Rezira) will …
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Banner Health is joining Select Medical on an initiative to combine operations of more than 38 physical therapy centers in Arizona and four acute inpatient rehabilitation hospitals located in Phoenix. Banner, which operates 33 urgent care centers in Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming, will be the majority owner and Select Medical the managing partner. Construction on three new acute inpatient rehabilitation hospitals will start later this year. Down the road, some existing hospitals will be consolidated …
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Celebrities and some nutrition gurus have touted the benefits of a raw diet for years. The latest ‘raw’ trend goes way beyond fruits and vegetables, though, and has the potential to drive consumers to your urgent care center. It’s water. Raw water is untreated and unfiltered; it’s literally drawn from the earth, bottled, and sold for upwards of $15 a gallon. The problem, health-wise, is that it could be tainted with pesticides, animal waste, and …
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When a patient leaves your urgent care center after receiving excellent care and service, usually the most you hope for is that they’ll tell a friend. When they decide they want to tell the whole community, you know you’re doing something right. Such was the case for a patient after visiting Virtua Urgent Care in Voorhees Township, NJ the morning of New Year’s Eve. As he recounts in a letter to the Courier-Post, he woke …
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It was a long time coming, but as of January 1 patients covered by Tricare Prime can now visit any in-network urgent care center they want without a referral. The pilot program Congress instituted in May 2016 has become policy, doing away with restrictions that limited urgent care visits to two per year without receiving a referral. Point-of-service charges no longer apply, either. Tricare notes that the referral policy could be reinstated for 2019, and …
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It’s well established (though not accepted by all patients) that getting a flu shot is the best way to reduce risk for influenza infection, and that the need to do so is especially great for older patients. New research out of Spain shows that seniors who get a flu shot every year see a cumulative benefit that helps keep them out of the hospital. The authors of the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association …
Read MoreIt would be easy to make the argument that social media—and Big Media, at times—have done a great job of overriding scientific proof that the best way to avoid getting the flu is by getting vaccinated. It seems that every reluctant patient has it on the authority of YouTube or Twitter that vaccines do more harm than good, no matter how much data you throw at them. Some may have even seen the Tweet television …
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Flexibility and responsiveness to patient needs have become synonymous with the urgent care industry—though often it’s smaller, urgent care-exclusive operators who have the wherewithal to act so fast. Novant Hospital in Charlotte, NC is taking a page from their playbook, though, by responding to a perceived need in the community and opening the Women’s Urgent Care Center. Averaging roughly 50 patients per week, the clinic would be hard pressed to survive as a stand-alone entity, …
Read MoreThe Mercy health system and GoHealth Urgent Care have big plans for 2018, partnering on a joint venture that will create a growing network of urgent care centers across the Midwest. GoHealth already covers both coasts with 80 urgent care centers in Connecticut, New York, California, and Oregon; they’ll launch more than 30 cobranded Mercy-GoHealth Urgent Care Centers over the next 2 years in St. Louis and Springfield, MO; Oklahoma City; and northwest Arkansas. Hospital …
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