Practice Management
You might assume that utilization of telehealth continued what had been steady growth in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. You’d be mistaken, however. In fact, telehealth claim lines actually plummeted by 76% from 2020 to 2021, according to the FH Healthcare Indicators and FH Medical Price Index 2023 report. At the same time, it goes on to say, urgent care claim lines jumped 14% while ambulatory surgical centers dropped 7% and emergency room …
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Efficient time management is one of the signature attributes—and biggest draws—of an urgent care visit. A new study published by JAMA Health Forum could be viewed as a caveat for urgent care providers, however, as it suggests that shorter visits to primary care physicians seem to result in more poor prescribing decisions than longer visits do—at least for certain categories of medications and among patients from certain demographic groups. The cross-sectional study, which reflects the …
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Urgent message: While pneumonia in general continues to be a common diagnosis in children in the United States, relatively few studies have sought to determine the signs and symptoms that help to predict occult bacterial pneumonia. Awareness of associated signs and symptoms may assist the urgent care provider in proceeding more quickly to a correct diagnosis. Alyssa Whited, PA-C and Christina Gardner, PA-C CASE PRESENTATION A 5-year-old male with no significant past medical history presented …
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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois’s failure to ensure its online provider directories are current should be a wake-up call for urgent care operators everywhere. As reported by Becker’s Hospital Report, the company was just fined $605,000 for violating state network transparency laws; an audit showed the company failed to audit at least 25% of provider directories to ensure they were current and that their website maintained current provider information. The implication for urgent care …
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A company called Sollis Health swears they “don’t replace your primary care physician,” but is hoping patients won’t mind spending up to $6,000 a year for “membership-based, on-demand, and after-hours access.” An urgent care physician in Atlanta says he’s willing to see patients as many times as they’d like to come in for $100 per month. What the two have in common is a disdain for dealing with health insurance companies and the hope that …
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It wasn’t that long ago that we reported various health emergencies declared to help the country cope with the COVID-19 pandemic would be expiring this May. Now the United States Senate has passed a resolution to end the declarations immediately upon President Biden’s signature—which, according to an article published by Becker’s Hospital Review, he’s likely to provide. Different declarations cover different aspects of providing care. For a good overview, check out the summary created by …
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The evolving shortage of primary care providers is a challenge for urgent care operators in the United States, no doubt, but it is also showing to be the catalyst for additional growth within the industry, if the conclusions of a new study from FAIR Health are to be believed. Conversely, the ongoing success of urgent care may also be making it harder for primary care practices to maintain healthy clinical staffing levels. The report notes …
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A new study published by JAMA Pediatrics suggests that pulse oximetry may be less reliable in Black patients with hypoxemia than in White patients, possibly resulting in undertreatment of hypoxemia in some patients. The authors based their findings on comparison of arterial blood oxygen saturation (SaO2) and pulse oximetry (SpO2) in 774 patients (74% classified as White and 26% classified as Black) between the 1 and 17 years of age at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. …
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We reported just last week that a sharp downturn in physicians applying for obstetrics/gynecology residencies may portend a shortage in ob/gyns in hospitals and ultimately force some to reduce services. Now an opinion piece in MedPage Today suggests that children’s hospital consolidations, pediatric mental health crises, and acute surges like the one we saw recently with respiratory syncytial virus may force some institutions to look at reducing pediatric services. If that comes to pass, it’s …
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This year has seen record low interest in emergency medicine residency positions, with 555 unmatched positions (compared with 219 in 2022), according to an article published by MedPage Today. It’s not a sudden trend, either; between 2021 and 2022, applications to EM residencies dropped 16.8%. While the American College of Emergency Physicians is reportedly putting together a task force to grasp the reason for the decline (and to figure out a way to reverse it), …
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