Practice Management
Influenza tends to get all the headlines at this time of year, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only seasonal complaint patients are likely to present with at urgent care centers. Frigid temperatures and icy roadways and sidewalks are sending many patients to healthcare providers in multiple settings. Local newspapers in the Davenport, IA area recently noted that nearly 300 people were treated for falls and other weather-related hazards over the space of a couple …
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When a patient leaves your urgent care center after receiving excellent care and service, usually the most you hope for is that they’ll tell a friend. When they decide they want to tell the whole community, you know you’re doing something right. Such was the case for a patient after visiting Virtua Urgent Care in Voorhees Township, NJ the morning of New Year’s Eve. As he recounts in a letter to the Courier-Post, he woke …
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A new report published in the Journal of Pediatrics reveals traits common to pediatric Medicaid patients who visit urgent care centers. Roughly 8% of the 2.7 million children under age 19 in the 2013 Marketscan Medicaid database had at least one urgent care visit. More common attributes among those included age 1-2 years and presence of a complex chronic condition. “High” urgent care utilization was associated with five or more primary care visits for acute …
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The retail frenzy may subside once Christmas Day is past, but spikes in holiday traffic continue for immediate care providers. Emergency rooms and urgent care centers see their busiest days of the year during the end-of-year holidays, traditionally. Whether it’s food poisoning or carving injuries that present the day after Thanksgiving, broken bones sustained while hanging Christmas lights, or various injuries associated with over-celebrating the New Year, EDs around the country report their visits increase …
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Apparently recognizing that the general public has become aware of the life-threatening dangers of opioid pain medications, WVU Urgent Care has taken the initiative to promote its non–opioid philosophy for pain management. In an article posted their website, they take a stab at educating patients on other options that may be appropriate to help diminish pain, depending on the patient’s condition and needs. In that article, WVU Urgent Care physician Saira George, MD explains that the …
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Kaiser Permanente in Southern California reports that using computer alerts to inform physicians when antibiotics may not be the best course of treatment for sinusitis reduced the chance of an antibiotic being prescribed—with some qualifiers. The study, published recently in the American Journal of Managed Care, tracked nearly 22,000 cases of acute sinusitis in adults in primary care and urgent care offices. Researchers found that clinical decision support was associated with a 22% decrease in …
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Plans to reopen an emergency room that closed in 2014 have been scrapped in favor of expanding the hours of a nearby urgent care center in Spokane, WA. Administrators at the Mann-Grandstaff Veterans Affairs Medical Center haven’t hired enough physicians to staff the ED, so rather than delay further or try to get by on insufficient staffing, the plan is to keep the urgent care center open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. …
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Patients in the 50- to 59-year-old age range should receive vaccination against shingles, according to the latest recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). That guidance accompanied a rare—and nearly evenly split—nod to one vaccine over another. In an 8-7 vote, ACIP recommended the recently approved Shingrix (GlaxoSmithKline) over Zostavex (Merck). Both vaccines are FDA-approved for use in patients 50 and over, but ACIP recommends Zostavex only in patients over the age of …
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National urgent care operator American Family Care (AFC) is going to offer free flu shots to Americans who have served in the military this Veterans Day (Saturday, November 11). It’s actually taking a page from the military’s own book, as the U.S. armed services was the first body to initiate an influenza vaccination policy back in the 1940s. The Veterans Day effort goes beyond a feel-good publicity campaign, owing to the fact that veterans tend …
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A new predictive model from the University of Chicago indicates we should prepare for a flu season that’s “worse than average.” One important indicator in the model is the severity of flu in Australia, where the seasons are ahead of those in the U.S.; Australians just suffered through their worst flu season on record. The data underscore the importance of getting immunized early in the season—as in, now—especially for those at highest risk, such as …
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