Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

There’s No Crying in Urgent Care! (But If There Is, Can You Really Bill for It?)

It’s become common for patient complaints to make the rounds on social media. Occasionally, more outrageous or colorful claims go viral. Few capture the attention of major market media, though if you paged through the May 18, 2022 edition of the New York Post you would have been hard pressed to miss the headline screaming Shocked patient charged $40 ‘for crying’ during doctor’s appointment. The article stemmed from social media posts recounting a medical visit …

That Next Febrile Infant Could Be Perfectly Fine—or Not. New Guidelines May Help You Get It Right

A couple you’ve never encountered before come in with their 10-week-old baby. They’re first-time parents who are very nervous because their pride and joy has a fever of 102 and their pediatrician’s office is closed. The child appears to be fine otherwise to you, but now you’re nervous about attributing the fever to an unnamed, run-of-the-mill virus or dismissing it as just one of those things infants experience. New guidelines from the American Academy of …

Will Post-Pandemic Blues Drive Growth in Behavioral Health Urgent Care?

As JUCM News readers know (and as you may have experienced), the COVID-19 pandemic drove up patients presenting with symptoms of depression and anxiety. It should come as no surprise, then, that behavioral health urgent care facilities have been popping up with greater frequency recently. Just this week, media outlets in Arizona, New Jersey, and South Dakota carried news of the openings of walk-in mental health centers. That’s certain to be welcome news in the …

Take Note: New Data Reveal Who Is Most Likely to Write Too Many Antibiotic Scripts

There has been a concentrated effort over the past few years to raise awareness of overprescribing of antibiotics. As you know, it’s not just a matter of spending unnecessarily on drugs that aren’t called for, but also a risk to public health due to growing antibiotic resistance. And yet, every year new data seem to emerge indicating that this problem is just not going away. Now a study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report …

An Urgent Care Approach to Fishhook Removal

It has been brought to our attention that the publication titled “An Urgent Care Approach to Fishhook Removal” originally published in June 2021 digital edition of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine on June 1, 2021 (“Publication”), contains several changes made during the editing process performed by JUCM which the authors took issue with and subsequently demanded the Publication be retracted. Accordingly, at the request of the authors, Anthony G. Stanley, MD and Jorge Murillo, …

The Implementation of Nurse-Intiated Ankle and Foot X-rays in an Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: Nurse-initiated protocols (NIPs) have been found to be beneficial in emergency department settings. Nurse-initiated x-rays for ankle and foot injuries can reduce patients’ length of stay while improving staff satisfaction. Utilization of NIPs in an urgent care setting can bring positive benefits to patients, staff, and the organization. Allison Usset Gilles, DNP, FNP-C, RN; Der Xiong, DNP, FNP-C, RN; and Jenny A. Prochnow, DNP, MBA, RN INTRODUCTION Background Overcrowding and long wait times …

Failure to Get Mass Numbers of People Vaccinated Against COVID-19 Will Be Catastrophic

With half a million Americans dead and new cases on the rise in many states, the urgency of getting as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible should be obvious. However, new data from a small international survey of epidemiologists, virologists, and infectious disease specialists suggest that low vaccine coverage could leave every corner of the globe as vulnerable as ever, if not more so, in short order. Two-thirds of the 77 experts …

New Data on COVID-19 Vaccine After-Effects—What’s Expected, and What’s Cause for Concern

As more Americans get the COVID-19 vaccine, there’s a growing body of data on what after-effects patients are likely to experience—some of which may be so concerning to them that they visit your urgent care center. Recognizing those concerns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published patient-friendly guidance on what can be expected post-shot, as well as self-care recommendations and advice on when it makes sense to see a healthcare provider. Pain, redness, …

Warn Patients: Post-Coronavirus Immunity May Last 5 Months—but Transmissibility Continues

Patients who recover from COVID-19 infection may be comforted by new data suggesting their antibodies could provide at least 5 months of protection from new infection. The Sarscov2 Immunity & Reinfection EvaluationN (SIREN) study indicates that recovered individuals have at least 83% protection from reinfection over that time period, if not longer. However, as noted in an article posted by Medscape, some of those patients may still be capable of transmitting the virus to people …

No Matter What ‘Wave’ of the Pandemic We’re In, Tell Patients to Keep Wearing a Mask

Internationally, public health experts are in disagreement over the prospects of a second wave of widespread COVID-19 infection—though not because they think the pandemic is sputtering to a halt anytime soon. Some (such as Anthony Fauci, MD, head of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) say it’s premature to think about a second wave because we don’t know when the first wave will end. Others, such as a group …

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