Practice Management
Let it never be said that Amazon isn’t persistent in its pursuit of relevance in the U.S. healthcare marketplace. What can be said is that the company has yet to hit on a concept that really works, despite years of trying. The latest effort is Amazon Clinic, which reflects a return to chasing success in the virtual space. (As we reported in August, the company plucked down $3.9 billion to buy One Medical and its …
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JUCM News reported nearly a month ago on a scarcity of oral presentations of amoxicillin and clavulanate. Now, as we enter the season of large gatherings in close quarters, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists reports that 29 products from Aurobindo, Hikma, Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, Sandoz, and Teva are all continuing to report shortages for undisclosed reasons. Resupply dates vary by supplier, but across the board fulfilment could happen anywhere from late November to early …
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As temperatures fall in much of the United States new hospitalizations for COVID-19 are expected to start climbing again, according to projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And, as reported in Becker’s Hospital Review, a forecast from the Mayo Clinic says we can expect a steep but short-lived 51.5% increase in new cases between now and December 2. It seems likely, then, that urgent care centers will see an increase in patients …
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As cases of COVID-19 (and restrictions like social distancing) took hold in the United States, an interesting thing happened. Spread of many other communicable diseases declined. Sexually transmitted infections were among them. Conversely, as the pandemic has cooled down and people are returning to past behaviors, STIs are surging to prepandemic levels—and beyond. To make matters worse, a lot of STI specialty clinics that used to shoulder much of the assessment-and-treatment burden have shut down. …
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Everybody wants to be recognized and understood—whatever that means in a given scenario. When that scenario is a patient in need of care, the feeling that their healthcare provider understands them as an individual goes a long way—a very long way—toward how they experience their care. In fact, according to a report from NRC Health, patients who felt like they were treated “as a unique person” during a hospital experience were 295% more likely to …
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The contributions of nurse practitioners and physician assistants (known collectively as advanced practice providers, or APPs) have come to be invaluable in urgent care practices. With physicians in shorter supply and greater demand, the argument could be made that NPs and PAs are essential in keeping some urgent care operations afloat. The question of how much physician oversight should be required remains a controversial one—though in some states rules are relaxing to the point that …
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Updated guidelines for opioid prescribing draw a sharper distinction between prescribing for acute, subacute, and chronic pain than previous iterations—but with prescription drugs accountable for more overdose deaths than any other substance, the question of which urgent care patients should or should not be candidates for opioid prescriptions remains as essential as ever. As noted in an article published by Medpage Today, the new guidance promotes a greater degree of individualized care. They’re partly informed …
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After years of preventive social distancing, separations due to illness, and anxiety stoked by the COVID-19 pandemic this Thanksgiving especially is likely to be a time for gratitude, gatherings with friends and family…and accidents associated with carving, cooking, and getting a jump on hanging holiday lights, never mind food poisoning and collisions on crowded roadways. If you’ve done your job in marketing your urgent care center and providing excellent care, many patients will automatically think …
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Respiratory syncytial virus is running rampant from coast to coast, to the point that RSV hospitalizations outnumber COVID-19 in children by a 10 to one ratio in at least one hospital, according to an article published by the New York Post. It goes on to note that the virus is causing a “capacity disaster” in the words of the head of the pediatric department at Massachusetts General for Children. The pediatric ICU there is at …
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Australia is in the midst of a major data breach crisis after the health records of millions of Aussies were released on the dark web by hackers demanding undisclosed ransom. According to an article published online by Gizmodo, Australian insurance provider Medibank negotiated with the unknown hackers before ultimately deciding not to pay—at which point the cybercriminals put private medical information online. The group, which cybersecurity experts are calling BlogXX, appears to be running a …
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