Smoking Cessation: The Time to Address Employee Smoking is Now

Smoking Cessation: The Time to Address Employee Smoking is Now

Urgent Message: Tobacco-related illness costs the U.S. healthcare system billions in preventable medical expenses, yet many employees of urgent care centers continue to light up. It may be time for your urgent care center to address the issue of employee smoking by offering incentives for smoking cessation. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor of JUCM—The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. A …

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Five Marketing Measures that Matter for Your Urgent Care Success

Five Marketing Measures that Matter for Your Urgent Care Success

URGENT MESSAGE: When considering the options of expanding an urgent care center, it is difficult to justify allocating money toward marketing campaigns because the return on investment is not definitive. However, correctly understanding and effectively implementing marketing metrics can be fundamental in strategically building continuously improving—and successful—urgent care centers. As an urgent care owner, determining the value of marketing is difficult because a consumer’s perception about a company cannot be quantified. In any industry, a …

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Concussion in the Urgent Care Center: From the Sideline to Your Bottom Line

Concussion in the Urgent Care Center: From the Sideline to Your Bottom Line

URGENT MESSAGE: Increased awareness of concussion risks in organized sports creates an opportunity for urgent care centers to offer concussion education and treatment for student-athletes. James Nawalaniec is a first-year medical student at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Concussions can be difficult to diagnose and easy to ignore, although they pose a very serious threat to brain health and function—especially if more than one concussion is sustained within a short period …

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Use Digital Marketing and Social Media to Attract and Engage New Urgent Care Patients

Use Digital Marketing and Social Media to Attract and Engage New Urgent Care Patients

URGENT MESSAGE: A seismic shift away from traditional marketing toward digital media and popular consumer social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube has led most medical practices to focus on attracting and engaging both current and new patients via the internet. Urgent care practices, often the best-kept secrets in their communities, now have an unprecedented opportunity for growth using digital marketing and social media to their advantage. Parham Javaherian, MBA, is Chief Executive …

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Four Keys to Collecting Higher Payments in the Age of Patient Consumerism

Four Keys to Collecting Higher Payments in the Age of Patient Consumerism

URGENT MESSAGE: Patient expectations have changed with the evolving healthcare landscape. Urgent care operators need to keep pace in adapting their own approaches in order to collect the highest possible percentage of payments—and to survive. Randy Blue, MEd, CRCR is an Executive Director with HealthiPASS. He has over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, specifically in the healthcare space. With high-deductible insurance plans on the rise, patients are increasingly expected to pay for …

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Why Offer Immunizations and Vaccinations at Your Urgent Care Clinic?

Why Offer Immunizations and Vaccinations at Your Urgent Care Clinic?

URGENT MESSAGE: Every patient needs vaccinations at one point or another. Yet, some urgent care operators shy away from immunization campaigns for fear that they’re financially risky or are simply too much of a hassle. However, risk can be greatly diminished—or even eliminated—with proper planning, basic understanding of storage requirements, and ensuring your clinic is offering what the community you serve needs. Jack Roberts is an expert marketer who specializes in promoting and growing physician …

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Local SEO Matters!

Local SEO Matters!

URGENT MESSAGE: Mobile devices have gone from a convenience to a link between an individual and practically every facet of life—work, entertainment, and even healthcare. If you want them to help lead patients right to your door, you’ve got to ensure you’re linked in to search engines that employ location-enabled technology. Drew Reitzel is a partner in Sprout Marketing Group in Orlando, FL. Introduction In the ever-changing world of search engine optimization (SEO), local search …

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Clinica Mi Pueblo—Shedding Light on Urgent Care Solutions for America’s Uninsured Latino Population

Clinica Mi Pueblo—Shedding Light on Urgent Care Solutions for America’s Uninsured Latino Population

URGENT MESSAGE: America’s undocumented immigrant population—those who are ineligible for Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance via a state or federal exchange—are increasingly served by storefront “bodega clinics” that offer a range of services on a walk-in, cash-pay basis. While these “clinicas” provide much-needed access to the communities they serve, there are also concerns about the quality and oversight of their operations. Nonetheless, they could also teach many urgent care centers a thing or two about …

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Beware of Urgent Care Contract Clauses on Offshore Vendors, Other Issues

Beware of Urgent Care Contract Clauses on Offshore Vendors, Other Issues

URGENT MESSAGE: As payers introduce new clauses into urgent care-specific contracts, urgent care operators need to be vigilant to how several changes may affect their day-to-day operations. Kelly Mattingly is Director of Contracting & Credentialing at Practice Velocity, LLC, and a contracting and credentialing consultant with Urgent Care Consultants. With each new clause, provider contracts offered by payers become more complex, adding a host of burdens to the day-to-day operations of the urgent care center—eg, …

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Coding for Common Integumentary Procedures in the Urgent Care

Coding for Common Integumentary Procedures in the Urgent Care

URGENT MESSAGE: Laceration repairs and abscess drainage are two of the most commonly performed procedures in urgent care. Correct coding entails understanding what components are bundled with the surgical procedure, documentation of the diagnosis, location and size of the laceration or abscess, and the surgical technique utilized. Sarah Todt, RN, CPC, CEDC, CPMA is Director of Provider Education at LogixHealth. Deborah A. Wilson, RN, CPC, CEDC is Associate Director of Provider Education at LogixHealth. Care …

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