Practice Management
It’s not news that operating margins can be very thin—making it all the more perplexing that so many practices leave money on the table by not billing or coding correctly. While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said it will not deny claims for incorrect codes during the first year following implementation of ICD-10 in October 2015, provided that submitted codes are within the right code family, that’s only the tip of the …
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If your urgent care center has not seen a boom in patients reporting with flu-like symptoms, don’t assume it’s going to be a slow influenza season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the annual peak is merely delayed, not lower than expected. In fact, most of the United States is still seeing a gradual climb in reported cases with this year’s peak not expected until at least January. New Jersey and South Carolina …
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Patients are coming to believe that exchanging emails with physicians improves the quality of their care. While that may come into play most easily in the primary care setting, urgent care providers might want to heed this growing trend and deepen patient loyalty by establishing electronic points-of-contact for patients, if they haven’t already. Nearly half of the participants in a new study from Kaiser Permanente have used email to communicate with their providers about test …
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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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