Practice Management
URGENT MESSAGE: Five years after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)—also known as the “Affordable Care Act,” or “Obamacare”—many independent urgent care practices are still uncertain of their obligations. In addition to legal mandates, a competitive job market can make a compelling case for offering or subsidizing employee health benefits. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Practice Manager Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, a member of the …
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If improving your urgent care center’s financial management is one of your New Year resolutions, consider signing up for Financial Forecasting: Learn How to Use Key Financial Tools, a live webinar to be hosted by the Urgent Care Association (UCA) on Thursday, December 17 at 1 pm, Central. Speaker Luke Hart, a former urgent care CEO, will discuss tools to help increase cash flow, better assess your debts and risks, and leverage strong relationships with …
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Family medicine has a long way to go in supporting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ goal of tying fully half of traditional fee-for-service Medicare payments to value-based payment models by 2018, if a new survey from the American Academy of Family Medicine is any indication. Urgent care typically operates on a parallel, fee-for-service model, but the evolution of how other practice environments come to terms with the changing dynamics of the healthcare …
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A new ruling from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) standardizes the responsibility of state Medicaid agencies when it comes to telemedicine, aiming to ensure that “proper access to particular healthcare services can be ensured.” Those assessments would include the needs of patients, as well as time, distance and access afforded by telemedicine. Each state will be responsibility for policing itself by evaluating performance of those services every three years. Once the rule …
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Come January 1, the latest provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to go into effect will require companies that employ 50–99 people to offer acceptable health coverage to at least 95% of their full-time workers. Since that would include many urgent care centers, it’s likely that some operators will see their healthcare spending go up. However, savvy marketers will seize on the opportunity to demonstrate the value of their occupational medicine services to local …
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The United States Senate is the latest—and certainly the most prestigious—body to recommend pulling the plug on the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare). The Senate followed the lead of the House of Representatives by passing a new bill on December 3 that essentially repeals ACA. Passage of the new bill may be a moot point, as President Obama is likely to veto it. Once heralded by proponents as the salvation of uninsured …
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Much like concerns that the Y2K crossover would wreak havoc on civilization as we know it, the transition to ICD-10 codes has been far less disruptive than was feared by many. A new survey by KPMG shows that 79 percent of organizations have made the transition without any major hiccups, with 28 percent calling it “smooth” and 51 percent reporting “a few technical issues, but overall successful.” Just 11 percent called their transition experience a …
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Local business owners should be made aware that occupational medicine providers may be able to prevent more than the flu this season. With more than 11 million workdays—and $7 billion—lost annually to the flu according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, healthy employees mean a healthy bottom line in very real terms. Small businesses, especially those engaged in manufacturing where having a worker down with the flu could significantly diminish production for days …
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The end of 2015 means the end of a 10 percent bonus paid to primary care physicians who care for Medicare patients. Depending on how they react, some practices could see more patients turn to urgent care for acute complaints. Essentially, primary care practices will have three options once their bonus disappears: eat the revenue loss, take in more patients to make up for it, or charge patients more. The bonus program was initiated in …
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Citation: Bacharier LB, Guilbert TW, Maugeret DT, al. Early administration of azithromycin and prevention of severe lower respiratory tract illnesses in preschool children with a history of such illnesses. JAMA. 2015;314:2034-2044. Reviewed by: Michael B. Weinstock, MD Background/question: The authors wanted to know if antibiotics administered early in the course of a respiratory tract infection (RTI) in children with recurrent, severe RTIs decreased progression of disease. Study: This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at …
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