Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Potential Impact of Urgent Care Providers in Facilitating Lung Cancer Screening

Claire Katen; Cindy Lockett, MD It is well documented that Americans’ overall health lags behind that of other nations with the United States ranking 46th in life expectancy globally.1 This disparity is likely driven by multiple factors with limited access to healthcare services playing a significant role.2 As a premedical student, I, like many aspiring and active healthcare professionals, would like to close healthcare gaps and contribute to improving patient health outcomes. The urgent care …

Physician, Heal Thyself

Hal P. Kramer, MD After 41 years of clinical medicine, 2025 became my “physician, heal thyself” year. I became a patient with a story. Without challenge or feedback, many of us continue to repeat the same physical exams for a variety of complaints. We all develop our tools of the trade. However, we must remember that medicine is never all-known. Old ways can lead to new ways with a questioning and inquisitive mind. How many …

Sick of Sick Notes

Adrienne Freese, RN, BSN, is a charge nurse at Denver Health’s Peña Urgent Care in Denver, Colorado. For a patient, what’s worse than having a violent case of diarrhea? Obtaining an employer-required sick note proving said diarrhea. Do we, as healthcare workers, watch our patients on the toilet for evidence of diarrhea? Thankfully we don’t. Unlike our patients’ employers, we take our patients’ word for it. A sick note may seem like a benign issue, …

Urgent Care Clinician Procedural Benchmarking Survey Results

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 …

My AI Journey and Practical Lessons You Can Use Now

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 …

Artificial Intelligence With a Heart: How Front Desk Automation Is Rehumanizing Urgent Care

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 …

Rapid Molecular Diagnostics for Lower Respiratory Tract Infections in Urgent Care: Filling a Selective Gap

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 …

Documentation Excellence: The Trifecta

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 …

Are We Ready for a Day Without Urgent Care?

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 …

Practical Advice for Clinicians on Interfacing with Social Media

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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