Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Primary Care Operator Buys 11 VillageMD Sites

Walgreens recently completed the sale of 11 VillageMD clinics in Rhode Island to Arches Medical Partners (AMP), based in Boston. The sale is part of Walgreens’ broader initiative to boost profitability by divesting VillageMD primary care locations, following a period of weak fourth-quarter earnings in 2023. This week, the company announced 160 VillageMD clinics have been slated for closure—100 more than previously announced. The company recently exited the Florida market entirely and this week announced …

Walgreens Pulls Village Medical Out of Multiple Markets

After investing $5.2 billion in VillageMD in 2021, Walgreens initially had plans to open at least 600 Village Medical primary care clinics within Walgreens retail pharmacy locations in 30 markets by 2025, aiming to amass about 1,000 clinics by 2027. However, last week in what seems like a relative backpedal, Walgreens announced it is now closing all its VillageMD sites in Illinois and Florida, a Drug Store News story revealed. Illinois currently hosts 6 locations, and Florida …

Primary Care Outfit Aims to Productize Health Services With A.I.

Forward, a primary care provider that touts its foundational belief that “healthcare should be a product, not a service,” has revealed its latest project: self-serve CarePods that rely on apps and artificial intelligence (AI) for health screenings. Resembling the private, closet-like lactation rooms offered at some airports, these AI-based modules are setting up shop in offices, malls, and gyms. With an initial launch in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, Forward’s CarePods require a …

AHRQ Looks to Formalize Primary Care Definition

Federal researchers from the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) posted a draft technical brief with the goal of establishing a standardized definition for primary care. AHRQ’s initiative aims to address the existing variability in definitions of what’s considered primary care to align research efforts that ultimately drive policy. AHRQ is looking at three factors: what type of provider is providing the care; where care is delivered; and types of services. A public comment …

Millennials Are Drifting Away from Primary Care—Just as They Need a Physician Most

There’s no gentle way to put it: Members of the Millennial generation simply are not as interested in having a traditional relationship with a primary care provider as their predecessors have been. That shouldn’t be surprising, though, given that each successive generation seems to drift farther from that model of care. Where 82% of Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) report having a primary care provider, the same can be said for only …

New Data: More than Half of Adults Have Used Online Resources In Lieu of Primary Care

A new study from the University of Phoenix College of Health Professionals reveals that 59% of American adults have used online resources (eg, WebMD) to explore symptoms instead of visiting a primary care physician. Just 12% have used telemedicine in place of primary care. The data reflect an online survey of 2,201 people from a range of demographic categories. Doris Savron, executive dean, interpreted the data as proof that the healthcare industry is leaning toward …

Is There a Communication Gap Between Patients and Primary Care Physicians?

The upside of patients continuing to flock to urgent care is obvious: They get the care they need when they need it, instead of having to choose between waiting for days to see their primary care provider or heading to the emergency room with a complaint that isn’t actually emergent (meaning they’re clogging up the works there, and incurring higher healthcare costs to do so). The downside of this evolution is that sometimes PCPs are …

Can Hospitals Find Salvation by Offering Primary Care in the ED?

Hospitals and health systems have been taking a hard look at how they can maintain financial stability in recent years. As you’ve read here, many are venturing into urgent care, both on and off campus. Now, some are taking another step toward becoming everyday community health providers by offering, essentially, primary care in their emergency rooms. An article in Modern Healthcare details how one of them, Carolinas Healthcare System, realized the same old way of …

It’s Been a Tough Spring for Direct Primary Care

Direct primary care—in which practices bill patients recurring fees (often monthly) that cover many services without additional charges—is faltering, with the closure of two pioneers of the model recently. Qliance Medical Management and Turntable Health have both decided to close up shop, citing difficulties in securing funding to update services (eg, by offering a more urgent care-like level of care) and invest in technologies that would facilitate virtual care. Nonetheless, direct primary care continues to …

The Top Six Reasons Patients Seek Emergency and Urgent Care

The increased wait times in emergency rooms and explosion in the popularity of urgent care have been (and continue to be) well documented. Not as much attention has been paid to why there’s so much more traffic. A study soon to be published in Academic Emergency Medicine reveals a few of the answers—and some of them support the notion that urgent care fulfills unique needs, either clinically or in terms of patient preference: Limited access …

« Previous