Practice Management
It’s well documented that the United States has been in the grips of a narcotics addiction crisis for too long. Less established, until now, is the toll it might be taking on healthcare workers who themselves may be addicts and at risk for overdose and resultant death. Unfortunately, a report just published by the Annals of Internal Medicine reveals that those working in a healthcare setting are actually more likely to die from an overdose …
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New data from unrelated sources indicate that nurse practitioners and physician assistants (known collectively as advanced practice providers, or APPs) and urgent care may be intersecting more frequently, and more beneficially, than ever before. While the nursing education group Nursing Process notes that emergency departments/urgent care centers are among the top 12 settings in which NPs are in high demand, an article published by US News & World Report puts NPs in the top spot …
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has instituted policies wherein outstanding medical debt under $500 is no longer reportable to credit reporting companies like Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. While that may offer some degree of protection to healthcare consumers who have been billed exorbitant charges by freestanding emergency rooms and other facilities infamous for hitting patients with “hidden” charges, it takes away one more incentive for deadbeats to make good on their obligations—and urgent care operators …
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As long as 2 years after recovering from COVID-19, some patients who were healthy before becoming infected now experience blood clots, diabetes, neurological complications, fatigue, and mental health issues thought to be related to the virus. The authors of research published in the journal Nature measured disability adjusted life years (DALY) in patients who had recovered from COVID-19 or developed long COVID, with each DALY unit reflecting 1 year of healthy life lost due to …
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It’s well-established that patients value urgent care because it’s typically much more expedient than the emergency room, and certainly primary care practices. Proximity and savvy marketing may help you differentiate yourself from competitors who offer those same advantages, but are there even more basic considerations that draw patients to one locations vs another? New data released by Software Advice suggest that patients who choose independent healthcare practices vs those owned by large corporations do so …
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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reported 4 years ago that oral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduced the likelihood of HIV infection in adults at increased risk for infection. At the time, offering PrEP in urgent care was a controversial prospect; while there was little debate as to the public health benefits, some UC operators found the complex side-effects profile daunting for a setting largely dedicated to episodic care. Now a meta-analysis of newer PrEP regimens …
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The challenges of staffing rural urgent care centers has spurred some operators to get creative in order to meet patient demand. The question is, are some getting a little too creative in billing for their services? These murky waters have led to two individuals—an urgent care physician-owner and his office manager—being charged with healthcare fraud in Missouri. The United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Missouri alleges that the pair “conspired to make false statements …
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Educating the public on the benefits of urgent care vs the emergency room and other settings is a central challenge in the urgent care industry. This is especially true when it comes to getting through to patients who will at some point experience quintessential urgent care-worthy symptoms like cough, sore throat, and eye infection. The results of a recent poll that Cigna posted on LinkedIn, asking Where should you go for care if you are …
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A few months ago, JUCM News told you about QuikTrip’s rollout of urgent care centers (branded under the name MedWise) leveraging the real estate, marketing, and branding expertise of its gas stations. Apparently word is getting out, as an article on the initiative published by KFF Health News recently has been picked up by USA Today and various metropolitan newspapers around the country. Urgent Care Association CEO and regular JUCM contributor Lou Ellen Horwitz is quoted extensively throughout the piece—confessing that she was skeptical about QuikTrip’s plans …
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It’s not unusual for patients presenting to urgent care to have elevated blood pressure that doesn’t necessarily indicate that they have hypertension. Even extreme blood pressure may not mean the patient needs to be dispatched to the emergency room. There are any number of possible explanations for high BP reading besides “hypertension” in urgent care patients—pain, anxiety, and stimulant use being just a few. An article just published in JAMA Internal Medicine highlights another possible …
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