Supervising Doctors May be Held Liable in Malpractice Suits

Supervising Doctors May be Held Liable in Malpractice Suits

Urgent Message:  A supervising physician can be named in a lawsuit for malpractice against a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, however, there are steps supervising physicians can take to protect themselves against such actions. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc In urgent care settings, physicians are often responsible for supervising and overseeing a team of other healthcare employees, including nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), and medical assistants (MAs). If any member of this team is …

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Which IV Infusion Services are Most Appropriate for Urgent Care?

Which IV Infusion Services are Most Appropriate for Urgent Care?

Urgent Message: When offered as a medical service consistent with an urgent care center’s branding, IV infusion services can enable new revenue streams and expand the center’s appeal to a new base of patients. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc According to the Urgent Care Association (UCA), the capability to administer intravenous (IV) medications is a defining feature of urgent care.1 Along with x-ray services and suturing, the availability of IV treatment differentiates urgent care from …

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Thinking Outside the Box to Bring Urgent Care to the Patient

Thinking Outside the Box to Bring Urgent Care to the Patient

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, Macc Urgent Message: Urgent care is a consumer-driven phenomenon, and physician entrepreneurs continue to evolve the delivery of urgent care services in response to changing consumer preferences, both inside and beyond the brick-and-mortar facility. Citation: Ayers A. Thinking outside the box to bring urgent care to the patient. J Urgent Care Med. 2024;18(4): 31-33. While unregulated by most states, the term “urgent care” historically has come to mean a base offering …

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Considerations for Holiday Hours in Urgent Care

Considerations for Holiday Hours in Urgent Care

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Urgent Message: Whether an urgent care center should be open 365 days per year or close on major or minor holidays depends upon factors that influence profitability such as patient demand, competitive positioning, staff availability, payer reimbursement, and the branding impact of after-hours accessibility. As urgent care operators look to the coming holiday season and begin their strategic planning for the new year, many are faced with the question of …

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What Urgent Care Operators Need to Know About Pay Transparency

What Urgent Care Operators Need to Know About Pay Transparency

Urgent Message: As a rising percentage of jurisdictions require disclosure of salary ranges to current and/or prospective employees, urgent care leaders must achieve compliance with pay transparency laws. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc California, New York, Washington, and Rhode Island are among the latest states to add salary range transparency laws to their books.[1] As of this writing, eight states have enacted such laws, with at least 15 more considering legislation on this topic, including Illinois, …

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Worksite Clinics: Another Competitor or a New Opportunity for Urgent Care?

Worksite Clinics: Another Competitor or a New Opportunity for Urgent Care?

Urgent Message: Employer worksite clinics represent both a threat and an opportunity. Urgent care could lose some volume to no-cost care at work, but new business evolutions include partnering with local employers to develop onsite care models. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Consulting and Senior Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Patients today have more options for where they receive care than ever before, which means more competition for …

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Innovation and Sustainability: Urgent Care Run School-Based Health Centers Improve Community Health

Innovation and Sustainability: Urgent Care Run School-Based Health Centers Improve Community Health

Urgent message: By leveraging grant funding, community-facing services, and a collaborative model with school districts, QUICKmed Urgent Care operates a successful school-based health center model. This innovative approach addresses healthcare gaps in underserved areas and augments the operator’s core business. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Click Here to download the article PDF QUICKmed Urgent Care, based in Youngstown, OH, is a prominent provider in the state’s Northeast region. Its 12 traditional urgent care centers are …

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Urgent Care’s Top Hospital-Affiliated Urgent Care Operators—by Number of Locations

Urgent Care’s Top Hospital-Affiliated Urgent Care Operators—by Number of Locations

The makeup of the urgent care industry has changed considerably since its inception in the 1970s. At the time, it was a radical idea to see patients with nonemergent complaints on a walk-in basis. Certainly hospitals wanted no part of it; that’s what they had emergency rooms for. Rather, the UC industry’s founders tended to be in private or small group practices, but unsatisfied with how they were practicing. Over the decades that followed, it …

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“Big Retail” Pivots Are a Retreat from “On Demand” Care

“Big Retail” Pivots Are a Retreat from “On Demand” Care

Click Here to download the article PDF Urgent message: Food, drug, and mass retailers continue to explore the healthcare space and seek profitable ways to leverage their massive footprints. As they shift their strategies in favor of primary care, especially for Medicare populations, they are relinquishing control of the transactional health market to urgent care. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Consulting and is Senior Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care …

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Urgent Care’s Top 100—by Number of Locations

Urgent Care’s Top 100—by Number of Locations

Click Here to download the article PDF If urgent care had a family tree, it would show an ancestry rich in physicians with a pioneer spirit—individuals who wanted to find a way of practicing medicine that they believed to be more sensible, efficient, and economical while still offering excellent clinical care. Based on the decades that followed, up through today and beyond it’s safe to say the “experiment” has been an unqualified success.This is not …

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