Practice

Urgent care figures prominently in one Florida county’s efforts to curb excessive emergency room spending while also educating patients on how to choose the best setting for what ails them. A review of their 2018–2019 fiscal year told Volusia County, Florida officials that residents had an expensive habit: calling 911 when they didn’t have a way to get to a doctor’s office or going to the emergency room for relatively minor illness and injuries. The …

What has been mostly anecdotal over the past several years has now been confirmed by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Fewer patients than ever are going to traditional primary care practices, meaning their patronage is up for grabs. Between 2002 and 2015, there was a 2% drop in the number of patients who have an established primary care provider. While younger patients, people of color, …

With the advent of holiday cheer and office parties comes the resurgence of cold-weather injuries, many of which will present to urgent care centers. In addition to ensuring staff and inventories are suitably prepared, some urgent care operators are also reaching out to the public with advice on avoiding injury—but also with the subtle message that their clinic is prepared to treat them at a moment’s notice. American Family Care, for example, got news stories …

Patients who identify as lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, or queer are often underserved when it comes to healthcare. The reasons are many, and include the (often well-founded) perception that they will not be treated with respect; that most healthcare providers are not well-versed in issues particular to the LBGTQ population; and that even the forms all patients have to fill out fail to recognize their gender identity. The American Medical Association is taking steps toward …

Joyous (or even politically charged) family get-togethers are a holiday tradition for most Americans. Some holidays are also occasions for more inherent risk than others, however, with Thanksgiving near the top of the list of the most potentially dangerous. Whether it’s Uncle Ned trying out his new electric carving knife after one too many cocktails or an undercooked turkey carrying Salmonella—something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns about annually—people in your community are …

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has finalized a rule intended to ease cumbersome—and time-consuming—billing and coding requirements and increase reimbursements for services clinicians are already providing (such as those related to certain chronic illnesses). At the heart of the new system is an overhaul of the Evaluation and Management structure, which was designed and implemented in the mid-1990s, before the explosion of urgent care, widespread use of electronic health records, and secure data …

Numerous urgent care centers have dabbled in mental health urgent care over the years, to little positive effect in terms of patient volume or revenue. Times—and marketplaces—change, however. In rural areas, especially, where both medical and mental health providers can be few and far between, the idea of offering a broader array of services that include counseling might work. At least one urgent care operator is making a serious effort to find out if that’s …

Physician assistants and nurse practitioners, known collectively as advanced practice providers (APPs), are doing a great job administering care to patients in urgent care centers and other settings all over the country. With the worsening physician shortage, their contributions are going to become more and more essential as time goes on. So, it’s more important than ever to ensure that all the clinicians in your urgent care operation are working in concert with each other. …

Patient satisfaction scores have become something of a currency in the healthcare marketplace. That’s probably truest in urgent care, where patients are making snap decisions on where to go in the next 5 minutes—often guided by Yelp, Google, and even travel sites like Travelocity. It’s so common that fear of bad reviews can creep into your mind and start affecting how you practice. The mainstream media is picking up on that concern, though the coverage …