Practice

With alarming, simultaneous increases in cases of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus and the future of COVID-19 cases unclear, we can expect heavy patient volumes in urgent care centers over the coming months. While urgent care is known for its efficient way of providing excellent care, systems in place to keep patient flow on point will be put to the test. Some urgent care centers are already altering their norms in response. UnityPoint Health in …

Physicians aren’t the only healthcare professionals in short supply across the United States. Urgent care centers have been wrestling with a dearth of x-ray technicians for some time now. Given that the ability to offer x-ray services is a distinguishing characteristic that sets urgent care apart from some other walk-in settings, this is a fairly significant problem. Some urgent care centers have had to come up with innovative solutions in order to keep patients satisfied. …

Whether it’s declining to prescribe an antibiotic you know isn’t necessary to a patient who insists that it is or working through a billing issue, conflicts with patients are going to arise in your urgent care center. And when they do, how the matter is handled can make the difference between having a respectful disagreement and getting blasted online (or worse). An extreme example is playing out across mainstream and social media right now, as …

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 …

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 …

Americans will be traveling to see family or enjoy getaways in increasing numbers as the winter holidays and school breaks approach. Inevitably, along with the fun there will be skiing accidents, slip-and-fall injuries, and other cold-weather mishaps. Some of those unfortunate events will take place in resort areas, where people don’t have a clue where to turn for convenient care. Durango Urgent Care, clearly, foresaw this need and has arranged to open a location on …

Children and their parents should be able to trust that healthcare providers are among the safest individuals in the world to be around—with should being the operative word. Sadly, that’s an idealistic notion that doesn’t hold up when (fortunately rare) events prove otherwise. Most recently, as reported by 7News Boston, a physician in Massachusetts was one of four men arrested in a sting operation designed to snare individuals willing to pay for sex with 12- …

There’s been plenty of research into why some patients get over COVID-19 fairly quickly while others struggle for months with postacute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC, more colloquially known as “long COVID”). Now comes word that pandemic-related burnout continues to haunt healthcare providers even as caseloads remain lower than at any other point in years. According to part two (of three) of a survey from The Physician’s Foundation entitled Understanding the State of Physicians’ Wellbeing and …