Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

What Happens When Patients Don’t Need the ED but Can’t Get to Urgent Care? Here’s One Answer

An elderly lady who longer drives and has a scorching sore throat might be inclined to call an ambulance to take her to the emergency room. Clearly, it’s not an emergency but she’s got to see someone. In most places across the U.S. the end result will be a trip to the ED, which will have her waiting—for hours, maybe—and result in higher-than-necessary charges to Medicare. Under a new initiative in Seattle, however, it would …

‘Test to Treat’ COVID-19 Plans May Bear Some Clarification When It Comes to Urgent Care

If you watched President Biden’s State of the Union speech, you probably took note of changes planned for the “test to treat” initiative, in which patients can visit specified clinics to receive a COVID-19 test and then immediate treatment if warranted. Though the president called out pharmacy-based clinics as a specific example of such locations, the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has since clarified that urgent …

Is Urgent Care Immune to—or at Risk in—the Ongoing Evolution of the American Workplace?

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American workplace has been undergone a rapid evolution. At first it was incumbent upon employers to find a way to maximize productivity when many employees were confined to their homes. Needless to say, that was a more viable option for some than others. Urgent care has been in an unusual position in that some team members can work virtually (administrators, telemedicine providers) while others really have to …

Take Note: New Data Reveal Who Is Most Likely to Write Too Many Antibiotic Scripts

There has been a concentrated effort over the past few years to raise awareness of overprescribing of antibiotics. As you know, it’s not just a matter of spending unnecessarily on drugs that aren’t called for, but also a risk to public health due to growing antibiotic resistance. And yet, every year new data seem to emerge indicating that this problem is just not going away. Now a study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report …

A Common Diagnosis Too Often Leads to Overprescribing of Common Drugs

Parents presenting with children whose symptoms are suspicious for acute otitis media (AOM) are aplenty in urgent care, as well as in other settings. Unfortunately, too many of those parents expect—or even demand—a prescription for an antibiotic before leaving. And, in fact, often they’ll get just that whether it’s truly warranted or not. An article just published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests it’s time to remind ourselves, collectively, that such a kneejerk reaction may not be …

With Masks Coming Off, Urgent Care Operators Are Inching Back to ‘Normal’ Practices

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently adapting its stance on wearing masks in public to reduce risk for spreading COVID-19, urgent care operators are already using the new guidance to review their own practices and procedures. They’re also being encouraged to do so by fluctuations in patient volume. Tomah Health in Wisconsin, for example, is reopening its urgent care facility after closing it in January due to overwhelming COVID-19 cases in its …

A Million Tests Later: Perspectives on COVID-19 Testing in Pediatric Urgent Care

Urgent message: The depth of COVID-19 testing data specific to the pediatric urgent care market provides insights into the capability of the broader urgent care industry to play a significant role in public health in the United States. David J. Mathison, MD, MBA It’s easy to forget how 24 months ago the urgent care industry was amidst one of the worst influenza seasons in recent memory. Then in February 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 …

Reducing Low-Acuity Preventable Emergency Room Visits by Utilizing Urgent Care Center Services via Mobile Health Unit Diversion Program

Urgent message: Urgent care centers can execute and implement innovative ideas to ameliorate overcrowded Emergency Rooms. The creation of a mobile health diversion program to transport low acuity conditions to urgent care instead of a hospital emergency department can improve population health and reduce healthcare cost; providing the opportunity to leverage value-based care by targeting the triple aim (reducing cost, increasing patient satisfaction, and improving outcomes) while freeing up the emergency medical system services. Cesar …

Suddenly, Retail Landlords Are Warm to the Idea of Urgent Care Tenants

Time was that retail shopping centers and other commercial spaces were off limits to urgent care operators searching for new locations. The presumption was that a medical facility would not only fail to attract foot traffic, but might even drive away shoppers who didn’t want to run into possibly contagious people on their way into Old Navy or coming out of Panera on their way back to work. Fast forward to 2022 and real estate …

Update: Subvariant BA.2, Not Omicron Overall, May Be the Culprit in Disproportionate Deaths

Just last week we shared the odd phenomenon that while many patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 have escaped serious illness, daily deaths have increased since it became the dominant type of SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in patients 75 years of age and older. Now preliminary data released by BioRxiv indicates that it might not be Omicron so much as its recently discovered subvariant BA.2 that’s to blame. The researchers found that hamsters infected …