Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

NP Workforce Growing Quickly, While Physicians Remain Steady

A new analysis in Health Affairs estimates that the U.S. clinician workforce will continue to shift through 2030 with nurse practitioners (NPs) representing the fastest-growing segment. The number of full-time physicians is expected to increase by only about 1% annually, compared with 5.6% growth for physician assistants/associates (PAs) and 11% growth for NPs. By 2030, the combined number of NPs and PAs is projected to grow to 912,265 workers—almost the size of the physician workforce …

NPs Have Little Interaction With Supervising Physicians: Survey

A survey of 1,486 nurse practitioners (NPs) in North Carolina suggests that physician supervision often provides little direct clinical interaction, despite the state’s requirements for collaborative practice agreements. The survey was conducted by Jennifer Perry, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, CNE, a family nurse practitioner practicing in urgent care, and Chandra Speight, PhD, APRN, FNP-C, CNE, a professor at East Carolina University, and was presented at the American Association of Nurse Practitioners annual meeting. According to the …

Most Physicians Look At Data From Patient Wearables: AMA Survey

An American Medical Association (AMA) survey of 2,222 physicians across 6 countries found strong physician interest in using data collected from consumer wearables, such as smartwatches or over-the-counter biosensors. However, widespread use of the wearable data in clinical practice is limited, according to AMA. Among U.S. physicians, 86% report reviewing at least 1 type of wearable data, most commonly activity and function (67%), heart physiology (62%), events and alerts (55%), sleep (54%), and glucose or …

Updated Antibiotic Stewardship Framework Calls For Scalability

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updated guidance on the recommended features of antibiotic stewardship programs in outpatient settings. The agency says the updates reflect changes in today’s healthcare system environment, particularly with consideration for the increasing number of outpatient practices that are now under larger health system ownership. According to CDC, the new Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship Programs builds on its original 2016 framework to reflect the latest …

Carbon Health Settlement Serves as Warning Shot For MSOs

A freshly inked settlement involving Carbon Health Technologies—a primary care and telehealth provider—is getting attention because it represents a new era in enforcement of stricter corporate-practice-of-medicine rules in California enacted last year. At issue was Carbon Health’s operational approach, which the state attorney general alleged violated the law because the company acted as an unlicensed corporate entity effectively owning and controlling medical practices. In other words, the state believed the corporation itself directed practical medical …

California Wage Rules Could Drive Up Urgent Care Labor Costs Overall

Starting July 1, healthcare organizations in California will begin paying employees according to new minimum wage rules under legislation signed into law in 2024. And for urgent care, the facility type makes a difference. Urgent cares affiliated with community clinics or rural health clinics must raise the minimum hourly pay from $21 to $22. For most urgent cares, however—operators that fall into the “all other covered healthcare facilities” category in the law—the minimum hourly pay …

Prepare For Heat-Related Presentations In World Cup Cities

Soccer’s premier World Cup tournament kicks off this week in 16 cities across North America, and urgent care clinicians near the host sites should be prepared for a potential surge in patient visits, including visits for heat-related illness, such as heat stroke and heat exhaustion. More than one-third of the scheduled soccer matches will take place in locations forecasted to experience high summer temperatures and humidity, according to new analysis from NPR. When analyzing 20 …

Outdated Regulations Hamper Urgent Care X-ray Services

Recently, the Rochester Regional Health system in New York discontinued on-site x-ray services at 2 urgent care centers and reallocated those radiology technologists (RTs) to other urgent cares in the system that have higher patient demand, according to a local news site. Such optimization strategies could become more common in urgent care, given the state-specific requirements for radiology staff and the RT shortages across the nation. The reallocations of staff and discontinuations of x-ray services …

Physician Gender Pay Gap Has Little to Do With Area of Specialty

A survey of 10,865 full-time physicians found that in terms of total compensation, female physicians earn just 78 cents for each $1 that male physicians earn—a gender pay gap of 22%. In actual dollars, female physicians reported average annual compensation of $354,000, compared to the $463,000 for male physicians. The gap in pay among physicians is substantially wider than the gap recorded in other industries across the U.S. labor market, according to Merit Health, which …

High Urgent Care Throughput Delivers Patient Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia

A study at the urgent care clinic of King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, found patients reported high overall satisfaction with their urgent care experience, as published in Cureus. More than 91% of patients said they were satisfied or very satisfied, and 93.5% said they would return for future care. Most patients (91.5%) were assessed within 30 minutes, including 65.5% seen within 15 minutes. Patients seen within 30 minutes were significantly more likely …

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