Practice Management
Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Urgent message: While metrics are essential for measuring a business strategy’s effectiveness, losing sight of the strategy in favor of a sole focus on the metrics carries the risk of undermining the very objective the strategy was meant to achieve. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Or …
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Christina Gardner, DHSc, MBA, PA-C; Alexandra Nassif, PA-C; Connie Brooks, MSN-FNP; and Kim Roe, MBA, RRT Urgent message: Postgraduate fellowship programs are essential to the development of highly trained providers who can support the ongoing growth of the urgent care marketplace in the midst of a national physician shortage. However, historically there have been view available to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Introduction A 2017 report of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), predicted …
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Urgent message: As a retail delivery channel for healthcare, success in urgent care depends on successfully executing the “retail” elements of the urgent care delivery model—the first of which is “location.” Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Urgent care differs from other types of medicine in that it adheres to a retail delivery model; successful urgent …
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Urgent message: An urgent care operation’s success is determined greatly by the quality of its workforce. Consequently, in increasingly competitive labor markets, urgent care operators need to invest in their strongest employees to get them to stay. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. While we often point to location, marketing, systems, and other “success factors” in …
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Urgent message: The difference between being a “business owner” and “just an employee” is the personal degree of investment one has in his or her organization. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. What differentiates an “outstanding” from a “mediocre” employee? While factors like dependability, attention to detail, and pleasant demeanor might be the first come to …
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A New Mexico physician assistant was arrested recently on charges he sexually abused a child repeatedly—years after being granted probation after being charged with enticement of a minor in Utah. He was denied a license in Utah for that reason in 2009, but was granted a PA license in New Mexico less than a year later. PAs are certified nationally, but licensed at the state level. JUCM published an original article on this very topic …
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Urgent Message: Urgent care demands that providers meet goals for fast patient turnaround and positive patient experiences, which when combined with tight staffing makes recognizing and preventing provider burnout a priority for urgent care providers. It’s been said that providers are the lifeblood of any healthcare organization. Indeed, they’re the collective engines that make everything go, such that their focused engagement and dedicated patient care are critical for organizational success. But that dedication often leaves …
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Urgent message: Urgent care centers need engaged and effective operations leadership, which entails clearly defining managerial roles, individual skillsets and personality characteristics and also having a process for attracting, interviewing, and qualifying managerial candidates. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Jim Clifton, the highly respected CEO of global performance and research leader Gallup, has …
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Urgent message: Travel medicine is a service addition that enables urgent care operators to attract more patients and increase revenue from existing patients while leveraging existing infrastructure and personnel. When an urgent care center’s patient revenues exceed operating expenses, the operation is said to have achieved break-even profitability—at which point each incremental patient visit contributes directly to the bottom line. Nevertheless, in the face of rising fixed costs and falling payer reimbursements, many centers still …
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