Practice Management
The American College of Physicians has called for scope of practice limits on retail health clinics such as those built into chain drugstores. In the executive summary of a policy position paper by Hilary Daniel and Shari Erikson and published on the website of the Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP expressed concern over recent efforts to manage chronic conditions in the retail setting, suggesting that research into potential negative outcomes may be desirable. It acknowledged …
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President Obama’s veto of the $612 billion defense spending bill last week could affect more than traditional military contractors and pay raises for service members. The bill would have allowed more than a million military personnel and their families to seek care at urgent care centers directly; currently, they have to get a referral from their primary care physician. Both houses of Congress passed the bill, which has other healthcare implications besides the urgent care …
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A handful of urgent care centers in New York will have to find ways to make their fee structure and status with various health plans clearer to prospective patients as part of a settlement with the state attorney general’s office. The four operators, all in the New York City metropolitan area, have agreed to do the following: Identify all health plans with which it has contracted to be an in-network, participating provider on its website. If …
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Urgent care centers in New York State are being tasked with additional measures to ensure patients understand the costs of treatment. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman reached agreements with four New York urgent care centers this week to provide detailed information to consumers about health plan participation and in-network versus out-of-network coverage. It’s the first enforcement action of the state’s recently adopted “Surprise Bill Law,” enacted to protect consumers from unexpected medical billings and …
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The past five years have been another good stretch for the urgent care marketplace: new data from Accenture, a management consulting firm, show that visits to urgent care clinics increased 19 percent from 2010 to 2015 (projected)—equating to 176.8 million visits this year alone. By comparison, the retail clinic sector (which offers a more limited menu of services than the typical urgent care center) is also growing, expecting to receive 18.8 million patient visits this …
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Get Smart About Antibiotics Week 2015 offers an opportunity for urgent care center management to get the word out about both their own services and the importance of responsible antibiotic use. With more than a third of urgent care centers in the US writing between 73 and 144 prescriptions for antibiotics each month, clinicians are all too familiar with the patient who shows up looking for a Z-Pak …
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“Urgent care” was in its infancy and electronic medical records were practically the stuff of science fiction when the ICD-9 codes were released in 1979. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) takes one giant leap toward catching up with the launch of ICD-10 codes on October 1. As of that date, ICD-9 codes will no longer be accepted. CMS has said the new coding set is expected to “advance public health research and …
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In & Out Urgent Care in New Orleans is the latest urgent care center to enter the world of clinical trials. Partnering with a company called Urgent Care Clinical Trials, the center is studying treatment of shingles (herpes zoster). It’s the first trial the center has participated in. In addition to advancing the practice of urgent care and available remedies for disease states studied, participation in clinical trials can be a new source of revenue …
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A multicenter pilot program in California is studying whether urgent care centers could be a destination for ambulances carrying lower-acuity patients. Paramedics in participating locales receive advanced training to triage and transport 911 patients with cuts, soft-tissue injuries, and wounds or illnesses they deem to be minor to urgent care centers instead of hospital emergency rooms. The patient must consent to participate in the program, and can choose from a list of urgent care centers. …
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URGENT MESSAGE: The proliferation of smartphone-accessible, on-demand healthcare services delivered to patient homes has received a lot of media coverage recently, but the “UBER” model is hardly a practical replacement for walk-in urgent care. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, Practice Management Editor for JUCM—The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Urgent Care Association of America. Uber is …
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