Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

The Role of Urgent Care in an Integrated Care System: Insights from Intermountain Healthcare

Urgent message: This exclusive interview with Intermountain Medical Group Chief Executive Officer Linda Leckman, MD, illustrates how urgent care can improve access and clinical outcomes while reducing costs for patients in a system that integrates providers, hospitals, and health insurance using a shared electronic medical record and capitated payment. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity Introduction In the evolving U.S. health-care system, individual providers, ancillary facilities, hospitals, and payors are joining together in connected systems …

May 2015

Six Elements of a Winning Patient Experience

Urgent message: Successful urgent care centers depend on repeat visits from loyal patients, but if patients do not like the experience provided, do not value it, or do not think it meets their needs, they will not come back. Cultivating a loyal following entails understanding and building a service offering around the factors that attract patients and keep them coming back. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity Urgent care is differentiated from other medical practices …

Recognizing Employee Disengagement and Taking Steps to Re-engage

Urgent message: Employee disengagement is pandemic in the American workplace. At urgent care centers, operators have to work especially hard to keep frontline staff members motivated. Re-engaging employees starts with a strong management culture committed to establishing affinity with employees and ensuring that systems and processes support day-to-day operations. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity For many urgent care operators—clinically adept physician–owners who are likely green as entrepreneurs—it can be sobering to realize just how …

April 2015

Image Check: Impact of Employee Appearance on the Patient Experience

Urgent message: Patients often infer quality on the basis of outward appearances. Adopting a policy that addresses clothing, grooming, and body art can help balance the need to project a professional image in the urgent care center and to ensure workplace safety with employees’ desire to express themselves. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Practice Velocity Remember the popular 1990s advertising slogan “Image is everything”? What was back then a trendy catchphrase created to peddle expensive …

March 2015

February 2015

A Process Approach to Differentiating Your Urgent Care Brand by Ensuring That Patients Leave Satisfied

Urgent message: Rapid growth of the urgent care industry has led to increased competition but little differentiation among urgent care providers, which consumers tend to view as “pretty much the same.” The opportunity for urgent care is thus to foster patient loyalty by creating differentiated brands, which starts by taking a process approach to the patient experience. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Urgent care is maturing into a big business. In 2015, the industry’s nearly …

The Sword and the Shield: Best Hiring Practices for Urgent Care Facilities

Urgent message: It is imperative that urgent care centers utilize the various tools at their disposal to recruit the best candidates, while implementing best practices that mitigate the potential for lawsuits. DAMARIS L. MEDINA, ESQ. Urgent care is one of the fastest growing segments of American health care. Historically, many urgent care facilities were considered small businesses because they employed fewer than 15 people, making them exempt from certain hiring discrimination claims under The Federal …