It sounded like a great job. You saw the ad in the back of JUCM and contacted the person listed at the bottom. He seemed pleasant enough on the phone and the pay was what you thought was the market rate for the area. The next day, you drove over for the interview, which consisted of only four questions (the first being “If you were a tree…” and the last being “When can you start?”), toured …
Read MoreRules & Regulators
Occupational Medicine- August, 2007
The art of using the “right” words and avoiding words that tend to harm one’s sales effort is undervalued. Consider these recommendations: Use strong, descriptive, positive words. Your choice of words should reflect the image you wish to portray of your urgent care clinic, and the attributes that go along with such an image (e.g., energy, confidence, focus, and warmth). How about asking your staff to list the 10 words that reflect the most positive …
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Management of Distal Radial Fractures
Urgent message: Distal radial fractures in children can often be treated by non-orthopedists without the need for full casting in an urgent care center that can perform simple splinting, thus sparing hospital referral. Deena R. Zimmerman, MD, MPH, IBCLC, Scott Fields, MD, and Nahum Kovalski, BSc, MDCM Introduction Wrist fracture is a com-mon injury in children. Many of these fractures are buckle or torus fractures. Traditionally, treatment for buckle fractures has been short-arm casting for …
Read MoreDeveloping Data: July/August, 2007
UCA’s Survey Committee has conducted two annual member surveys, to date, designed to establish benchmarks in an industry for which data have been sorely lacking. Each month in Developing Data, we will share one or two tidbits from the second annual survey in an effort to help readers get a sense of what their peers are doing, and what kind of trends are developing asurgent care evolves. In this issue: How are some clinics employing …
Read MoreChoose Words Carefully in an Occupational Health Sales Call
The art of using the “right” words and avoiding words that tend to harm one’s sales effort is undervalued. Consider these recommendations
Read MoreTest the Waters Before Signing an Employment Contract
JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP It sounded like a great job. You saw the ad in the back of JUCM and contacted the person listed at the bottom. He seemed pleasant enough on the phone and the pay was what you thought was the market rate for the area. The next day, you drove over for the interview, which consisted of only four questions (the first being “If you were a tree…” and the …
Read MoreOccupational Medicine- June, 2007
Injection Procedures and E/M Codes
DAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Q.Can we bill an evaluation and management code along with the code for administration of an intravenous injection? A.Although it may seem obvious to expect reimbursement in these situations, Medicare waited until 2006 to begin reimbursing physicians for a separate E/M (99201- 99205, 99212-99215) when performed at the same time as IV drug administration. The Medicare Claims Processing Manual states, “Medicare will pay for medically necessary office/outpatient visits billed on …
Read MoreAddressing the Data Drought
Urgent message: The second UCA Benchmarking Survey takes one small step toward filling the information gap in urgent care medicine. Introduction: Although the practice of urgent care medicine is not a new phenomenon, there is a significant absence of reliable information about the industry. One first step toward filling that void was initiated last year when the Urgent Care Association’s Benchmarking Committee released the results of its first-ever benchmarking survey of UCA members and others …
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