Practice Management

On paper, flu season starts next month, meaning it’s an ideal time to start reminding patients they’ll need flu shots (and that you’ll be happy to provide one). While the majority of children tend to get their shots toward the end of the season according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the distribution has been more evenly distributed for adults over the past few flu seasons, as seen in Figure 1, below. The benefits of administering flu shots in your urgent care center are twofold: 1) additional revenueRead More

It’s again time to review what has changed with the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) effective October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. There are 360 new, 142 deleted, and 226 revised diagnosis codes in the final update. We will review the changes most relevant to urgent care, but the examples shown here are not all-inclusive. You can find all updates in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website at https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/2018-ICD-10-CM-and-GEMs.html. Enterocolitis Code A04.7 was deleted to make room for two new codes thatRead More

Urgent message: As many primary care providers expand their hours and offer walk-in service, the lines between urgent care and primary care become blurred. To remain competitive, urgent care operators will need to more clearly define their value to patient and payers, increase the acuity of services offered to reduce duplication, and become more innovative in their service delivery and partnerships. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Introduction For years, many primary care physicians (PCPs) have looked at urgent care with skepticism. While they realize that urgent care can be aRead More

Urgent message: Ongoing growth within the urgent care industry intensifies competition for competent professionals. “Sharing” trusted workers across multiple sites can help keep costs in check and ensure efficient practices—provided it’s done right. Andraya Carson-Hruby and Vance Daniels It is a good time to be in the urgent care business: According to the Urgent Care Association of America’s 2016 Benchmarking Report, there was a 10% increase in the number of urgent care centers across the U.S. from 2015 to 2016, and 90% of urgent care centers expect continued growth thisRead More

Q: What is the difference between a detailed exam and an expanded problem-focused exam? A: Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer to that question. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provides some guidance in the 1995 and 1997 guidelines (https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/MLN-Publications-Items/CMS1243514.html). The 1995 guidelines state the documentation of the examination as follows: Problem-Focused – A limited examination of the affected body area or organ system. Expanded Problem-Focused –A limited examination of the affected body area or organ system and other symptomatic or related organ system(s). Detailed – An extendedRead More

Urgent Message: The owners and operators of urgent care centers are liable only for “foreseeable” events, which generally excludes a car crashing into an urgent care center and other “freak” accidents. Perhaps it’s the last story on a newscast, or in the strange-but-true section of the newspaper or a website: a vehicle crashes into an urgent care center. As strange as this news may seem, it’s not entirely uncommon. In the past decade, there have been at least 13 incidents of motor vehicles crashing into urgent care facilities—some of whichRead More

Urgent message: Ideally, paid advertising should show a return on investment based on the revenue it generates. However, revenue-based metrics are difficult to prove using social media, in which “likes” are more valuable in identifying fully engaged patients than generating direct sales. When it comes to social media marketing channels, Facebook remains atop the throne. The fact that 80% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Facebook page more than supports that assertion, and stands as testament to the platform’s meteoric rise. Indeed, brands and companies spend billions each yearRead More

Driven partially by increased use of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, patients continued to flood emergency rooms across the country in increasing numbers over the 10-year period ending in 2014, according to data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ; see graph below). The implications for urgent care are A) that some of those patients surely received their first opioid prescriptions in an urgent care center legitimately for treatment of acute pain, underscoring the need for continued vigilance and commitment to responsible prescribing practices, and B) as always,Read More