Practice Management
Newspapers and online media outlets across the country picked up on what had been a pretty mundane local story recently, with the net effect being a bad look for urgent care. It all started when a high school junior flipped her car and slammed into a tree while driving along a winding road in Rome, GA. She was unhurt except for a headache, for which her father took her to the closest urgent care center …
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Last year saw more patients leave emergency rooms without being seen than ever before, according to research published by JAMA Network Open. Per data collected between 2017 and 2021 from between 365 and 1,769 hospital EDs (it varied by year), the rate of patients who left the ED without being seen jumped from 1.1% to 2.1% in the United States. While their destination upon leaving the ED was not part of the study, it’s reasonable …
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As JUCM News reported recently, an increase in new cases of severe respiratory illness in children prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Health Advisory Network to issue a bulletin advising U.S. clinicians to be vigilant for signs of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in younger patients. The September announcement noted an increase in illness attributed to both rhinovirus and Enterovirus in children across the country. Some of the Enterovirus patients tested positive for EV-D68, …
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an Official Health Advisory to urge U.S. clinicians to include Ebola virus disease (EVD) in their differential diagnoses for patients presenting with fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal symptoms, and unexplained bleeding. The advisory also recommends taking a detailed travel history for such patients. There is an active outbreak occurring within five districts in Uganda, but at present there have been …
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Long COVID has been much discussed here and elsewhere—even more so since new acute cases of COVID-19 have slowed—so it’s likely you have a general sense of what to look for in prospective cases. That’s unless the patient is a child, anyway; new information just published in JAMA Pediatrics reveals that, while uncommon in kids, postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) manifests differently in younger patients than it does in adults. The cohort study, reflecting …
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Urgent care has thrived by proving to be a safe, cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms for nonemergent complaints. In some areas of the U.S., urgent care centers may become more than an “alternative” to care soon, though. Becker’s Hospital Review reports that 17 hospitals from New Jersey to California are cutting back on services that would surely be described as “essential” to many patients. While obstetrics and maternity seem to be the most likely …
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After 2 years of restrictions and worries due to the COVID-19 pandemic, communities are gearing up for a relatively normal and less-stressed Halloween. The build-up could be an ideal opportunity for urgent care centers to demonstrate their eagerness to support families and local business communities. For one, Castleview Urgent Care in Price, UT is going to offer up its parking lot as the site of a community Trunk or Treat featuring “decorated cars, lots of …
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Regular readers of JUCM and JUCM News know the United States is scrambling to a solution for a future that will, unless trends change quickly, see fewer primary care physicians than ever relative to the patient population. What has gone under the radar for the most part until now is the equally daunting challenge of running a practice with fewer nurses, medical assistants, and various technicians. In short, at a time when urgent care has …
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Though ivermectin has been the most widely discussed medication purported to help fight or prevent COVID-19, metformin and fluvoxamine have also been put forth by some as candidates to draw the pandemic to a quick close. And each of them has proven to be highly effective within their approved indications. The problem is that none has been helpful in fighting SARS-CoV-2, according to research published by The New England Journal of Medicine. After randomly assigning …
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As JUCM readers know, public health officials have expressed concern that the much dreaded—but previously unrealized—simultaneous spike in influenza and SARS-CoV-2 could overwhelm the U.S. healthcare system, kill unknown masses of patients, and pummel the nation’s economy. Unfortunately, fresh insights gleaned from the start of the U.S. flu season are doing nothing assuage those fears. In fact, Vanderbilt infectious disease professor and highly regarded public health expert William Schaffner, MD told NPR just last week, …
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