Practice

Much of the U.S. is getting hammered with winter storms as of this writing, forcing some urgent care operators to decide whether it’s worth it (and safe) to conduct business as usual, close early, or not even open up for the day. Prevea Health in Wisconsin, for one, got ahead of the game by announcing in local media and its own platforms that they’d be closing all locations, including urgent care centers, from Wednesday afternoon …

New data from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker show that healthcare facilities, in general, are filing for higher-complexity care than in years past—but that urgent care providers buck the trend by filing such claims at a lower rate than their counterparts in the emergency room and traditional physician practices. Looking at claims for outpatient visits between 2004 and 2021 from the Merative MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters database for nonelderly people, researchers determined that providers …

It’s common (and understandable) for urgent care operators and providers to feel undercompensated by payers for the services they provide. The quality of care is excellent, typically, and the cost savings passed along to insurers every time a patient can avoid going to the emergency room is almost incalculable. And yet, those insurers impose policies that make it very difficult for reimbursements to match the presumed value of urgent care. Workplace efficiencies can only go …

Trinity Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI had to shut its emergency room down due to a bomb threat one evening last week. It was just the latest in a series of threatened or actual violence at healthcare facilities in the United States. Last June, a former surgical patient went on a shooting spree at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, OK, killing four people and injuring several others before committing suicide. Then in …

Of the many answers to the question What sets urgent care centers apart from retail clinics?, the ability to offer x-rays on site is high on the list. Some might call it one of urgent care’s distinguishing characteristics. It seems like the ability to continue doing so gets more challenging by the day, though. As JUCM readers know, one concern is a shortage of qualified radiologic technologists. And with the rapid growth of the industry, …

Staffing shortages, provider burnout, and the general public’s full return to postpandemic normalcy are conspiring to create long waits in hospital emergency rooms—so long, in fact, that hospital administrators and local government officials are pleading with patients to visit urgent care and other walk-in or virtual healthcare providers when prudent. Statistically, patients heading to EDs in Maryland have it worst, as they’ll wait an average of 228 minutes to be seen as reported by The …

As JUCM and JUCM News readers know, the COVID-19 pandemic ratcheted up already-high risk for burnout among urgent care providers. However, new data published in Medscape’s U.S. Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2023 suggest it would be a mistake to assume that as the burden of SARS-CoV-2 cases continues to wane, so will provider burnout. The report acknowledges that rates of burnout have increased by 26% since 2018, but survey responses indicate that there are …

Much is made of differences perceived among patients born into one generation or another—Gen Xers do this, Millennials don’t want that…. There’s more to it than simplified stereotypes, though. According to an article recently published by Becker’s Hospital Review, reaching  Generation Z patients and motivating them to visit urgent care when they have healthcare needs may require you to adapt your offerings, or at least your messaging. Drawn from research conducted by the management consulting …

The COVID-19 era has had a profound, deleterious effect on healthcare providers’ level of happiness in their work and in life, according to Medscape’s 2023 Physician Lifestyle and Happiness Report. Prepandemic, they were a pretty happy bunch, with 84% saying they were “somewhat” or “very” happy in their lives outside of work. Now, though, according to the report, only 58% can say that. There was a similar drop relating to work, specifically, too. Previously, 75% …

Conversations with patients go on all day—every day of every week of every year. It’s hard to name anything more ordinary in an urgent care center. It’s important to remember this is not the case for the patient, however. Especially in urgent care, it’s likely that if a patient came in to see you their day is anything but ordinary. Many may see any provider at all once a year, at most. So, those interactions …