Practice Management
Local, state, and federal health officials are reminding clinicians and occupational medicine providers to follow safe immunizations practices in the wake of serial missteps during a workplace vaccination program in New Jersey. An article published in the December 18 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report notes “disregard for basic vaccine safety” that set in motion a mad scramble to assess and contain any potential danger to 67 workers whom they believe received shots with …
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Optum has followed up its acquisition of urgent care provider MedExpress by buying a chunk of ProHealth Physicians, an independent physician group based in Connecticut. Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, has been on a healthcare shopping spree over the past two years. The latest deal gives Optum control over ProHealth’s administration and other backend operations. The primary-care medical group will continue to be physician-owned, however. ProHealth has stated its plans to move toward risk-based …
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If patients start paying more for visiting out-of-network emergency rooms, the American College of Emergency Physicians suggests it will be the government’s fault, not physicians’ or hospitals’. ACEP joined with the Emergency Department Practice Management Association in crafting a response to a new federal rule that would bar insurers from charging plan members higher copayments when they visit out-of-network EDs. That law does not prohibit doctors and hospitals from “balance billing” consumers if the insurers …
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Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Practice Management Editor of JUCM, The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, a member of the Board of Directors of the Urgent Care Association of America, and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity. URGENT MESSAGE: Twenty-five states are now seeing head lice that are resistant to most common over-the-counter remedies, creating a nuisance for parents and a potential business opportunity for urgent care. Between 6 and 12 million …
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Emphasis on timely patient flow, reducing wait times, and maximizing provider efficiency may leave urgent care clinicians at greater risk for burnout than ever before—and that’s on top of the pressures reported in a new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The data show that burnout rates, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation among physicians are going up and that satisfaction with work–life balance is going down. Fifty-four percent of the subjects reported at least one …
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As the number of urgent care facilities and retail clinics goes up, visits to the emergency room go down, according to the 2015 Cost Trends Report from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. The number of urgent care facilities in the commonwealth grew eightfold between 2008 and 2015, the report says. The report noted a 30 percent drop in ED use when there’s a “convenient care” facility nearby. Meanwhile, the Center for Health Information and Analysis …
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There are new data supporting the belief that emergency rooms are not doing enough to stem overcrowding—a longstanding rationale for visiting an urgent care center for nonemergent complaints. A new study published in Health Affairs says that while more hospitals are adopting interventions to prevent overcrowding (eg, bedside registration, scheduling elective surgeries on weekends), far too many are not doing enough. Researchers from Albany Medical College, George Washington University, and Harvard Medical School report that …
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In a relatively down year in the single-tenant net lease medical sector, urgent care centers continue to pique more interest than other healthcare properties. (A net lease is one in which the tenant pays all expenses of the property—property taxes, common areas, building maintenance, and utilities—as if they owned it.) The Boulder Group, an investment real estate services firm, reports that in the third quarter of 2015 cap rates in the medical sector compressed, while …
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The national mainstream media are starting to take up the debate over when patients really need to go to the emergency room vs other settings like urgent care. US News & World Report just published a story by Elaine Cox, MD, that draws a parallel between the Twitter age, where people have gotten used to expressing themselves in 140 characters and feel they need immediate care for whatever ails them, and data showing that ED …
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It’s no surprise that patients prefer doctors who pay attention to them—but new data show that patients can feel they’re competing with computer screens for the physician’s focus, which can lead to concerns about the quality of care they’re receiving. A study by medical sociologist Richard Frankel, PhD of the Indiana University School of Medicine found that some doctors spend more than 80 percent of their time in exam rooms interacting with their computer instead …
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