Urgent message: Urgent care centers must dispose of fully depreciated office equipment such as computers, copiers, fax machines, and telephones containing protected health information in a manner that complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. How this column helps you: gives you guidelines for protecting your patients’ privacy. Introduction Since 2009, 42 million patients have been affected by privacy breaches entailing their protected health information (PHI).1 Many of these breaches stem from the …
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Data Are Clear: We Need More Urgent Care Centers!
We’ve all seen the data concerning the “graying” of the population and physician shortages (it’s not good), and within this industry intuited that urgent care will play an important role in providing care when and where it’s needed most. New data now show just how big an opportunity there is for urgent care operators. Looking at estimates of current volumes per urgent care center within the context of population density, demographics, and payer mix, Health …
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Checklists Are as Essential in the Office as in the Cockpit
As an FAA-licensed commercial multi-engine instrument pilot, I have been well versed in the importance of checklists. When lives are at stake, a pilot cannot afford to overlook details pertaining to the configuration and operation of the airplane. For example, failing to assure the landing gear is fully down or that flaps are set properly upon approach can be deadly. Checklists help assure that pilots, no matter how experienced, don’t overlook anything. Likewise, checklists can …
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Urgent Care Buyers Club Vows to Stay the Course
Healthcare corporations continue to deepen their urgent care portfolios through acquisition—and they’re seeing dividends while also planning to continue buying up properties. HCA Holdings welcomed more than a million patients into its ever-expanding urgent care units within the last year—an increase of 500%, according to the company. Having made a number of acquisitions in the urgent care marketplace, as we’ve told you, HCA now has 66 centers in the U.S. The hospital giant has reported …
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NY Urgent Care Centers Agree to Beef Up Insurance Disclosures
A handful of urgent care centers in New York will have to find ways to make their fee structure and status with various health plans clearer to prospective patients as part of a settlement with the state attorney general’s office. The four operators, all in the New York City metropolitan area, have agreed to do the following: Identify all health plans with which it has contracted to be an in-network, participating provider on its website. If …
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