Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Site-Neutral Rule Will Level Reimbursement For Urgent Care

When major health systems acquire off-campus clinics, they’ve historically been able to use their main hospital’s assigned 10-digit National Provider Identifier (NPI) number to bill Medicare for routine visits at the off-campus site, securing significantly higher facility-level reimbursements. But starting in 2028, a new bipartisan policy will require hospitals to use distinct NPIs when billing for Medicare services provided at their off-campus outpatient sites. This concept of “site-neutral payment” will impact urgent care centers, essentially …

Azithromycin Does Not Improve Severe Wheezing in Young Kids

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found azithromycin did not lead to a greater reduction in symptom severity among young children presenting to the emergency department (ED) with moderate-to-severe wheezing. The study included 840 children aged 18–59 months—62% of which tested positive for potentially pathogenic airway bacteria, and 86.1% had detectable respiratory viruses. Rhinovirus was the most common (72.5%). In the study, conducted at 8 U.S. pediatric EDs, children received …

High Urgent Care Throughput Delivers Patient Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia

A study at the urgent care clinic of King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, found patients reported high overall satisfaction with their urgent care experience, as published in Cureus. More than 91% of patients said they were satisfied or very satisfied, and 93.5% said they would return for future care. Most patients (91.5%) were assessed within 30 minutes, including 65.5% seen within 15 minutes. Patients seen within 30 minutes were significantly more likely …

Tick Bites Surge—And UC Can Be The Preferred Treatment Setting

Weekly emergency department (ED) visits for tick bites have reached their highest April levels since 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—reaching 104 per 100,000 ED visits. Last year, just 14 states accounted for ~90% of U.S. Lyme disease cases, according to Harvard Health, and the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwest are the regions of highest risk. Even so, the reported data doesn’t capture urgent care’s role in treating tick bites …

Here’s What Fraudulent Billing Looks Like: Physician Indicted

A physician leader/owner of an urgent care clinic in Missouri was recently charged with billing fraud and illegal prescribing of controlled substances. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the alleged fraud scheme included the physician billing Medicare and Medicaid for medical services as if he had performed them himself—even though the care was actually provided by assistants who had not yet entered residency and thus were not authorized to file claims. It further alleges …

Conservative Antibiotic Duration May Work Well For Kids’ Uncomplicated UTIs

Shorter courses of antibiotics may be a reasonable option for kids with uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs), according to a meta-analysis of 13 randomized trials involving 2,010 children published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection. Researchers found that shorter antibiotic courses of 2–5 days prescribed for acute, uncomplicated pediatric UTIs produced outcomes comparable to longer courses of 7 days or more. Relapse rates were similar between groups (risk ratio [RR] 1.08), with only 8 more relapses …

CGRP Drugs Help Most For Migraine

A systematic review of 43 randomized trials involving more than 14,000 patients found that evidence shows several newer calcitonin gene–related peptide (CGRP)-targeted drugs can reduce chronic migraine frequency by about 2 headache days per month compared with placebo. In the review published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers also found the CGRPs may achieve at least a 50% reduction in migraine frequency, although those findings were sourced from a limited number of studies. Botulinum …

DoxyPEP Loses Effectiveness For Gonorrhea Over Time

Patients using the doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (doxyPEP) treatment protocol typically take a dose of the antibiotic within 72 hours of unprotected sex. DoxyPEP has shown some encouraging real-world effectiveness with significant declines in incidence of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs). However, a new study of 26,582 men who have sex with men and transgender women in California from January 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025, published in The Lancet Infectious Disease, found that doxyPEP remained …

Cases of Ingested Water Beads Rise 6,000%; X-rays May Not Help Clinicians Diagnose

Toy blasters that shoot water beads are popular among kids as well as some adults, and most blasters cost less than $50 with a supply of thousands of water beads. The concern is that the colorful beads look like candy and may be attractive to young children. More than 20,000 water bead ingestions in children younger than 6 years were reported to U.S. poison centers between 2019 and 2024, as published in Academic Pediatrics. The …

Ondansetron May Not Be Necessary For All Kids After ED Visit For Vomiting

An analysis of persistent vomiting among children in emergency department (ED) presentations found that children under 2 years of age and those with 10 or more episodes of vomiting at presentation were more likely to benefit from ondansetron after discharge than other children. As published in JAMA Network Open, researchers analyzed 977 children with acute gastroenteritis–associated vomiting between September 14, 2019, and June 27, 2024, and found that overall, 8.6% of children had 3 or …

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