Practice Management
An urgent care center in Florida is being forced to shut down, not because it couldn’t draw enough patients or provided bad care, but because of a highly charged disagreement over the nature of its start-up funds. Here’s what everyone agrees on: A Florida woman provided substantial funds to help a new urgent care center get going 2 years ago. After that, it gets harder to separate fact from fiction in the case of a …
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Rural healthcare is such an entity unto itself that Utah is in the midst of celebrating an official Rural Health Week right now, with the stated purpose of drawing attention to efforts to improve the care available to residents who live in less-traveled parts of the state. Coinciding with that, the American Hospital Association (AHA) is investigating what role urgent care can play in filling “access gaps” in medically underserved regions. AHA’s Task Force on …
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Just a week ago, we shared data from TMR Research indicating that the urgent care industry would continue its upward trajectory for years to come. Now another report, this one from Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE), offers even more data corroborating those findings. Urgent Care Centers Market—Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014–2020 analyzes the potential for growth in specific aspects of the urgent care industry, such as illness, injury, physical, …
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The steady growth of the urgent care industry in the U.S. should continue for at least the next several years, according to a new market forecast from TMR Research. The growing proportion of the elderly population, the rise of chronic diseases that require occasional immediate attention, and increasing investment from both public and private parties will be primary drivers, according to the report. It defines urgent care centers as “walk-in or no appointment healthcare centers …
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Michigan companies can’t fill jobs because too many people can’t pass a drug test, screams a headline reposted to Crain’s Detroit Business from Bridge Magazine. It’s not just idle chatter, either; the article under that headline quotes data from Quest Diagnostics’ Drug Testing Index, as well as workplace experts and state officials in Michigan. The problem may be especially acute in Traverse City, MI, but for reasons that would be applicable to any number of …
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Neither company has confirmed it, but The Wall Street Journal reports that CVS Health has offered to buy Aetna in a deal that could have vast implications in the retail health and insurance marketplaces. The combined company would have much stronger bargaining power when negotiating deals with health systems, payers, and pharmaceutical companies, than either company does alone. For starters, as the WSJ article points out, CVS’s pharmacy benefit management arm would see “a huge …
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Urgent message: Opioid abuse, addiction, and resultant deaths have drawn the attention of both the medical community and legislative bodies from the local health department to the White House. Urgent care is a frequent destination for addicts trying to secure drugs illicitly—but it also has the potential to be the first stop on the road to recovery. Jason M. Ramos and Robert S. Crausman, MD, MMS Case Presentation Manny is a middle-aged white male who …
Read MoreUrgent message: Urgent care centers must use all reasonable efforts to comply with informed-consent and consent-to-minors laws. This should include consulting with legal counsel on the specific laws of the state and developing protocols to shield the center from possible litigation. 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. Introduction Medical practices like urgent care centers …
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Two major players in urgent care and occupational medicine are being joined together by their respective ownerships. Select Medical Holdings Corporation and Dignity Health have agreed on a definitive agreement to combine Concentra Group Holdings, LLC, an occupational medicine and urgent care service provider, with U.S. HealthWorks, Inc., which offers services in the same sectors. There is some geographical overlap, such as in the Milwaukee and Nashville markets, but locations are more complementary than they …
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Urgent care centers in hurricane-affected areas have probably gotten into the habit of looking for sudden respiratory ailments and signs of illness related to consumption of tainted water or food. However, the vast numbers of relief workers and volunteers who flocked to help residents affected by the recent storms are now returning home, where providers may not have such issues at the top of their minds. Recognizing that, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …
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