Practice Management
Patrick O’Malley, MD; Albert Botchway, PhD; Laurel Stoimenoff, PT (ret.); and Lindsey E. Fish, MD, on behalf of the College of Urgent Care Medicine Over the past 15 years, there have been significant changes in urgent care (UC) medicine. First and foremost, this is a rapidly expanding field of medicine as urgent care centers now provide more than 200 million visits a year performed in more than 14,000 locations. Additionally, urgent care centers have transitioned …
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Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc My artificial intelligence (AI) awakening wasn’t a lightning bolt but a slow current—a series of small jolts. I kept encountering people who seemingly talked about AI all the time—fluent in the lingo and referred to by others as “AI gurus.” From their conversations, it was clear they were putting AI into real operations—analyzing data, streamlining tasks, even building custom AI tools and agents. But it was still as if they …
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Saji Rajasekharan Urgent care is no longer the healthcare industry’s understudy or stopgap solution—it’s become a primary point of access for millions. According to Urgent Care Association, more than 200 million visits are made to urgent care centers annually in the United States, reflecting patients’ growing demand for fast, reliable, and accessible care.[1] Patient expectations mirror those of retail: seamless digital check-ins, price transparency, and instant answers. Meeting these demands isn’t a value-add—it’s a strategic …
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Tatiana Havryliuk, MD Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become a cornerstone of emergency medicine, yet its uptake in urgent care has been slow. Despite the emergence of affordable handheld ultrasound devices, many urgent care clinics have yet to integrate POCUS into routine practice. The common barriers to adoption include limited provider competence, the cost of devices, archiving solutions, and training, as well as a lack of administrative resources to support a high-quality POCUS program. The growing …
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Consider the case of a pediatric patient who presents with recurrent sore throat, erythema, no tonsillar exudates, and a negative viral panel. The patient has a positive group A strep (GAS) PCR swab, however, was recently diagnosed with streptococcal pharyngitis a couple weeks ago and just finished a course of amoxicillin 7 days ago. Is this a false positive PCR test result? What is the next appropriate course of action? What is the overall incidence …
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Barbara D. Alexander, MD, MHS; Kimberly E. Hanson, MD, MHS; Adriana E. Rosato, PhD; David B. Nash, MD; Maren S. Fragala, PhD; Steven E. Goldberg, MD, MBA Diagnostic uncertainty and error contribute to inappropriate treatments, which, in turn, can increase morbidity and the costs associated with care.1,2,3,4 Diagnostic errors can also contribute to unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, contributing to antimicrobial resistance (AMR).1,5 Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) are among the most common urgent care (UC) and …
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Brad Laymon, PA In the dynamic environment of urgent care (UC) medicine, precise, and thorough documentation serves as a cornerstone for both clinical and operational success. Beyond merely fulfilling regulatory requirements, documentation excellence has 3 critical functions, which I refer to as the “trifecta:” 1. Improved patient outcomes through clear communication of care; 2. Mitigation of malpractice risk through clear and defensible explanation of medical decision making (MDM); and 3. Accurate description of complexity to …
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Rajesh Geria, MD; Patrick O’Malley, MD Every year, our nation’s 14,000 urgent care (UC) clinics care for nearly 206 million patients, equating to 564,383 patients every day across the country.[1] Imagine what would happen if there was no urgent care for just a single day. Now imagine that if that possibility lasted not just a day, but indefinitely. Unfortunately, many communities are at risk for this reality coming to pass. Decreasing reimbursement, clinician burnout, and …
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Did you know the average person spends over 2 hours on social media every day?[1] While it’s clear that social media is here to stay, the impacts of social media trends on clinicians and patients alike is probably less apparent to you—but it is undoubtedly the reality we face. Today, 8 in 10 internet users search for health information online,[2] and 74% of these people use social media.[3] Perhaps more surprisingly, in a 2023 survey, …
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Lyndsie Watkins, PA-C, FCUCM Lyndsie Watkins, PA-C, FCUCM, is lead PA for Northwell Health GoHealth Urgent Care East Region, a director of its fellowship program, and co-director of the GoPrepare emergency preparedness programing. Picture this: It’s a busy day in your urgent care (UC). You’re moving along steadily, seeing patients back-to-back. Unexpectedly, there is a commotion as a woman is brought in from the neighborhood right in front of the building. She appears unconscious, and …
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