Practice Management
The most successful urgent care centers, by definition, have found a way to set themselves apart from their competitors. Besides offering excellent care, many make the effort to find a niche that demonstrates a sound understanding of what patients in their area seek in an urgent care provider. Direct Urgent Care in San Francisco has done just that by starting to offer HIV prevention services, while Dignity Health-GoHealth Urgent Care is considering doing to the …
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Would a prospective patient who lands on your homepage after a Google search or seeing one of your ads be able to tell the difference between your center and the one four blocks down? If you’re Sequoia Prompt Care in Visalia, CA they would. The first things a web visitor to their website sees, in big bold letters, is “Click here to QuickPass the waiting room!” Follow that direction and you’re taken to another screen …
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With many states stuck in their peak flu seasons and death tolls rising—24 people have died from influenza in the state of Washington, alone—urgent care centers are being called upon to offer twofold support: First, to administer flu shots to patients who haven’t received them and provide supportive care for those who have influenza, and second, to care for patients fleeing emergency rooms that are overflowing with flu patients. Make sure area primary care office …
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With months of the flu season still ahead and the rate of new cases continuing to rise across the country, now is the time to step up efforts to immunize as many patients as possible. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that outpatient visits for flu-like symptoms are up 3.4% compared with this point in last year’s flu season. Further, more than 1,300 people were hospitalized between October and December (the month when …
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Military veterans’ access to healthcare took a huge leap forward last year—and urgent care was a big factor, according to a new study by the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Program Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU). Working in conjunction with the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), the researchers concluded that MyVA Access, implemented in 2015, established sustainable solutions within VA facilities to …
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Oklahoma is the latest state to report an outbreak of mumps, joining Washington, New York, Arkansas, and Missouri in what’s become the heaviest season for confirmed cases in years. Washington, New York, and Arkansas continue to report new cases in multiple counties, while Missouri’s case load seems to have leveled off, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not surprisingly, most cases in every state are clustered around school populations, though …
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The Food and Drug Administration says battery-powered medical carts are to blame for a series of fires in facilities across the country, leading the agency to publish a warning letter recommending that all medical offices, including urgent care centers, take preventive measures. While the size of some carts makes their use prohibitive in many urgent care locations, larger centers, such as those that might be affiliated with a healthcare system, that use such systems are …
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The evolution of electronic health records (or, more specifically, the data they house) pairs well—and not so coincidentally—with the growth of urgent care over the past decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sees electronic data collection as having greater application and significance than simply allowing patient histories to be readily accessible, though. The CDC is working out the optimal way to foster sharing of healthcare data across literal borders to identify—and, hopefully, …
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Patients who read (or, maybe more likely, see an online or television commercial) about “new” disorders whose descriptions may apply to them could be inclined to run off to the urgent care center for immediate evaluation, even if there’s nothing urgent about their condition. Diagnoses that didn’t even exist or were seldom made a decade ago (eg, adult ADHD, low testosterone) are now being described in breathless detail. Even recognized disease states like diabetes continue …
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While the University of Georgia joins the pack of institutions warning that immunizations are dangerously low this flu season (roughly 40% of what they should be at this time of year), a new study by Amino reveals that patients in the millennial age group are the most likely to visit either an urgent care center or the emergency room when the think they have the flu. These two pieces of data, though flowing from different …
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