Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

A 5-Month-Old with Symptoms Beyond the Presenting Complaint

Urgent message: Treating preverbal children can be challenging under every-day circumstances for pediatricians who know the child and the family. Urgent care providers who may not have the benefit of that history must be especially vigilant for all available signs and symptoms to make diagnoses based on the full scope of the presentation. Michael Weinstock, MD Case Presentation (Please note: The Case Presentation is drawn directly from the treating physician’s notes, without editing or correction, …

Urgent Care Evaluation of Arrhythmias

Urgent message: Initial evaluation of a patient with an arrhythmia in the urgent care setting can be as difficult as it is critical to the patient’s survival—one key concern being sudden cardiac death, which occurs in roughly 328,000 cases annually. Riaz Fabian, DO Introduction Cardiac arrhythmias are a group of conditions in which a patient has an abnormal heart rate or rhythm. They are caused by any disruption of the electrical conduction system of the …

Nurse-Only Visits in Urgent Care: An Analysis of Outcomes and Patient Satisfaction Relative to Traditional Care

Urgent message: As shown in an in-house study by one urgent care operator, protocol-driven, nurse-only care of specific presenting complaints may be one way to help curb healthcare spending while not compromising on quality of care or threatening patient-satisfaction scores. Kyle Coon and Brett Whyte, MD Abstract Basic healthcare costs are rising at a staggering and, it’s widely considered, unsustainable rate. As a result, lower-cost alternatives that maintain quality and satisfaction are being explored across …

If the Patient Can’t Go to Urgent Care, Urgent Care Goes to the Patient

Another urgent care entrepreneur is taking her show on the road, this time in and around Colorado Springs. The brainchild of nurse practitioner Eileen Flavin, Anywhere Urgent Care is a house calls-only urgent care that boasts it offers 90% of the “essential” urgent care services available in clinic locations (leaving out x-rays and ultrasound, but including basic labs, simple suturing, and treatment for an array of complaints) as well as the off-hours convenience that’s become …

New Data Track Pediatric Use of Urgent Care

A new report published in the Journal of Pediatrics reveals traits common to pediatric Medicaid patients who visit urgent care centers. Roughly 8% of the 2.7 million children under age 19 in the 2013 Marketscan Medicaid database had at least one urgent care visit. More common attributes among those included age 1-2 years and presence of a complex chronic condition. “High” urgent care utilization was associated with five or more primary care visits for acute …

The Holiday Rush Isn’t Over for Urgent Care

The retail frenzy may subside once Christmas Day is past, but spikes in holiday traffic continue for immediate care providers. Emergency rooms and urgent care centers see their busiest days of the year during the end-of-year holidays, traditionally. Whether it’s food poisoning or carving injuries that present the day after Thanksgiving, broken bones sustained while hanging Christmas lights, or various injuries associated with over-celebrating the New Year, EDs around the country report their visits increase …

UCA Webinar: Don’t Just Fix Problems—Build a Culture!

Putting out fires may be necessary from time to time, but it’s no way to build a lasting presence in the urgent care marketplace. Focus all your attention on the day-to-day problems and you’ll find that your business is blowing in the wind like so many autumn leaves. Learn how to start breaking the cycle of jumping from one problem to the next in the first live webinar the Urgent Care Association will offer in …

Urgent Care Centers Greet the Holidays on a Charitable Note

Davam Urgent Care in Montgomery County, TX and New England Urgent Care in the Hartford, CT area are among the operators extending themselves on behalf of those in need this holiday season. Davam is donating $500 it took in administering flu shots in the month of November to help Magnolia Independent School District continue recovery from Hurricane Harvey. New England Urgent Care is running its first-ever holiday toy and coat drive. All four locations are …

Dental Urgent Care Chain Wants a Bigger Bite of the Big Apple

Dental365, a chain of dental urgent care clinics affiliated with CityMD in and around New York City, has gone on a holiday shopping spree and plans to open five recently acquired locations early in 2018. Like traditional, physician-based urgent care, Dental365’s model is based on greater convenience on a walk-in basis, with many locations open 7 days a week, often with evening hours. The company says it sees an average of 1,400 new patients monthly …

Update: CVS–Aetna Deal Will Have a Ripple Effect on Multiple Markets

If CVS’s $69 billion deal to buy Aetna goes through, one of the first things the company is expected to do is broadly expand its retail health clinic business—ultimately saving the company more than $1 billion annually, according to a report from Reuters. The presumed savings would flow out of efforts to improve access to preventative care through the CVS clinics. CVS has roughly 9,700 drugstores (though only a thousand or so have clinics), while …

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