Practice Management
A 2026 report from the Heart Failure Society of America, published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure, highlights the growing risk and negative consequences of heart failure (HF) in the United States. Approximately 7.7 million adults (3%) currently have HF—a number projected to reach 11.4 million by 2050. Lifetime risk is approximately 24%, meaning that an individual in the United States has roughly a 1 in 4 chance of developing HF at some point during …
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A new international expert consensus document from leading cardiology groups offers an update on the definition of heart failure, taking into consideration advances in diagnosis and clinical understanding of the disease, as published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. While the statement isn’t a clinical practice guideline—and does not include treatment recommendations—it aims to clarify the definition and adopt it universally. For urgent care clinicians, the most relevant point is that heart …
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A 74-year-old man without a significant past medical history presents to an urgent care center reporting 3 days of coughing productive of green sputum, shortness of breath that worsens with exertion, and chills. He says he has a chronic morning cough but states that the sputum has changed color and that his dyspnea has increased. He says he has not had any fever, chest pain, or lower extremity pain or swelling. View the image taken …
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