Practice Management
Urgent message: Urgent care operators are spending an increasing amount of their marketing budget on seven digital tactics. Fortunately for those working in healthcare, there will never be a shortage of patients. People will always come down with illnesses, and minor injuries won’t go away anytime soon. That being said, it can still be difficult to get people in the door of your specific urgent care center. Although it often gets neglected, proper marketing is …
Read MoreIt’s not uncommon for the uninitiated to view urgent care as just the first, most convenient stop in what may be a two- or three-stop odyssey to resolve an immediate healthcare need. That could take all day and wind up being very expensive. Those in the know—certainly urgent care providers, operators, and experienced patients—understand that a trip to the urgent care center is often all a patient needs to get the right level of …
Read MoreFor those trying to grow their urgent care business, conversations around payer contracting and credentialing (CC) can often be overwhelming and seem contradictory to the mission of On-Demand Care. Tammy Mallow, our resident Experity advisor on all things CC says she often finds herself being the perceived as a “dream killer” when educating owners to the inner workings of this process. Established groups often expect the payer rules to be the same as they were …
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Urgent message: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is well established as an imaging tool in the urgent care center. Although it is generally considered safe and easy to use, safety and hygiene considerations are frequently ignored—possibly leaving patients at risk for infection and excessive radiation exposure. Avijit Barai MBBS, MRCS, MSc, PgCertCPU, FRNZCUC; Martin Necas, MMedSonography, AMS, RDMS, MRT, RVT; and Bruce Lambie, MBBS, FACEM INTRODUCTION Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is well established as an imaging tool in …
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Urgent message: When holding a time slot that could go to another paying customer, it’s common for service businesses to charge no-show or cancellation fees. With many urgent care centers moving to online registration and queuing systems, could this be a solution for maximizing throughput in urgent care as well? Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Networks and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Please provide at …
Read MoreUrgent care has historically been viewed as a setting where patients could present with anything short of life- or limb-threatening complaints (though even those parameters have been stretched in dire situations.) And that identity has served the industry well, as evidenced by nearly constant growth over several decades. As time wore on, though, it became evident that there are business opportunities to be had by addressing niches with special needs. Occupational medicine is a prime …
Read MoreDecember brought us some last-minute coding changes. In some cases, this caused a small claim delay as clearinghouses and payers scrambled to update their systems. New ICD-10 Codes for COVID-19 Effective January 1, 2021, there are new ICD-10 codes for reporting COVID-19 related diagnoses. These codes replace the existing codes we are using that are not as specific. There are two other new codes: 81 (Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS)); and 89 (Other specified systemic involvement …
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Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. This quotation, commonly attributed to Dr. W. Edwards Deming,1 has never been more relevant for urgent care (UC) than right now. Considered the original guru of quality improvement, Dr. Deming was explaining why systems must be redesigned if the desired outcomes are not being achieved. The existing “system” for measuring clinical quality in UC needs an overhaul. It is fragmented and underdeveloped, and lacks …
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Urgent message: While an urgent care center is responsible for the collection and safeguarding of clinical specimens, it’s generally not liable for the activities of a third-party lab that it sends a specimen to. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Experity Urgent care facilities regularly provide bloodwork and laboratory testing for their patients. These services may include allergy screening, diabetes testing, anemia screening, immunity testing, thyroid screening and monitoring, and …
Read MoreJUCM has devoted a lot more space to covering aspects of providing urgent care for children. In this very issue there’s a new original research article on how long the SARS-CoV-2 virus lasts in children who may or may not be symptomatic (see page XX). And if you look at our Masthead, you’ll notice we’ve even engaged a pediatric urgent care provider to provide guidance and to help us ensure we’re conveying the right information …
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