Practice Management
U.S. emergency rooms saw more patients than ever in 2014, but that doesn’t necessarily mean urgent care isn’t getting its message out. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that over 141 million people ran to the ED that year (compared with 130 million the previous year), but some top reasons tended to be complaints for which it would not be appropriate to visit an urgent care center—chest pain chief among …
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Physicians, including urgent care providers, may be taking more than their share of the blame for the ongoing opioid crisis in the U.S., according to a report by The New York Times and ProPublica. While some public officials and media outlets have accused doctors of, essentially, enabling opioid addiction by prescribing narcotic pain medications too liberally, data show that prices set by insurers may be steering doctors and patients alike away from less-addictive alternatives. Opioid …
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Research has proven that workers who feel free to give constructive feedback about their jobs and their employers stay longer. The challenge, according to a new article published in the Harvard Business Review and reviewed online by Advisory Board, is getting them to feel comfortable enough to provide that feedback. Many workers feel any comments perceived as negative will be used against them, while others assume management doesn’t really want to hear it so any …
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Urgent care has made its mark by delivering good care to people on a walk-in basis. Those patients with sore throats, lacerations, and other complaints could have chosen to be treated in a primary care office, but realized their symptoms were such that waiting a few days was a miserable (or possibly dangerous) proposition. Some patients with mental health complaints find themselves in the same position—or worse, considering they might not already be aligned with …
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Hospitals in parts of Florida that were hit hard by Hurricane Irma are open for business and fully staffed, but they’ve got so many patients coming in with hurricane-related injuries and illness that the EDs are overflowing. Some of them have put out the word that urgent care would be a better place to go right now for nonemergent complaints, pointing out that they will be treated more quickly while also easing the burden at …
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Code 3 Emergency Partners is betting that an enclosed location where 65,000 people work and 65 million people pass through every year is probably a good place to set up an urgent care clinic. So they did, at D/FW International Airport in Dallas/Fort Worth. The clinic has the same capability to treat infections and lacerations, to take x-rays, and run ultrasounds as any other urgent care center—and a constant stream of passersby and workers who …
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Now that the U.S. has been battered by two hurricanes in quick succession from Texas to the Southeast, the urgent care community seems to have doubled its efforts to provide relief to those affected. In addition to efforts aimed at helping victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, East Coast urgent care operators are doing what they can for those caught in the path of Hurricane Irma. Florida Hospital announced it’s offering free video visits “until …
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Providence Health System wants to replace its 408-bed hospital in Washington, DC with a “health village” that will include urgent care and primary care facilities, a telehealth operation, and expanded post-acute care services. They also plan to include recreation space, such as walking trails, on the 30-acre property. Providence says there are simply too many hospital beds in its market, and that the health village concept is one that will better serve the surrounding community. …
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The upside of patients continuing to flock to urgent care is obvious: They get the care they need when they need it, instead of having to choose between waiting for days to see their primary care provider or heading to the emergency room with a complaint that isn’t actually emergent (meaning they’re clogging up the works there, and incurring higher healthcare costs to do so). The downside of this evolution is that sometimes PCPs are …
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The ongoing growth of the urgent care industry despite naysayers and a challenging payer landscape speaks to the commitment of individual physician owners who recognized the benefit of a different approach to practicing medicine—for themselves and for the patient. As we’ve mentioned here, one recent trend has seen hospital systems gobbling up individually owned urgent care operations. While the government keeps fairly close watch on mega mergers—sometimes blocking them in the interest of protecting an …
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