Practice Management
A 16-year-old female presents to urgent care with her mother after soccer practice at school. She says she felt a “pop” in her left hip, immediately followed by posterior hip pain. Walking makes it worse, but resting makes the pain better. An x-ray is ordered. Review the image and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the following page.
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A 74-year-old woman presents to urgent care with epistaxis, controlled on arrival. She is also complaining of lightheadedness and fatigue that’s been going on for the past 2 weeks. View the ECG captured above and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
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A 65-year-old woman presents to urgent care complaining of a growth that developed on her finger 2 months prior. She says it’s not painful or itchy and has not grown since she first noticed it. On examination, a solitary, smooth, pinkish papule with a tiny central crust is seen on her distal interphalangeal joint on her left index finger. The patient has a history of osteoarthritis. View the image below and consider what your diagnosis …
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Urgent Message: The vast majority of shoulder dislocations are anterior, occurring when stress is applied to an externally rotated and abducted shoulder. In most cases, immediate reduction is indicated, and urgent care clinicians should be familiar with situations that call for emergency department referral. Jennifer Hicks, DO; Matthew B. Baird, MD Citation: Hicks J, Baird MB. Urgent Care Assessment and Management of Shoulder Dislocations. J Urgent Care Med. 2025; 19(5):9-15 Questions for the Clinician at …
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Urgent Message: While legal under circumstances outlined by federal and state law, docking employee pay for violating an employer’s policies may be viewed as demoralizing and unethical versus punitive actions like warnings or suspension. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Citation: Ayers AA. The Legality of Docking the Pay of Urgent Care Employees. J Urgent Care Med. 2025; 19(5):41-43 Workers frequently make mistakes on the job. Some are mere oversights that are quickly corrected, while others …
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It’s believed that Urgent Care (UC) was born early in the 1980s, likely as the brainchild of Bruce Irwin, MD. He was an emergency room physician who saw “many people were coming to the emergency room with problems that could have been cared for in a less expensive and more convenient manner.”1 He opened a facility to do just that, which became American Family Care, the nation’s largest Urgent Care provider. Dr. Bruce Irwin passed …
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Urgent Message: Today, there are very few market opportunities for urgent care that present no competition, so operators must assess not just the existence of local competition but also the nuanced qualities of each competitor. Heather Real Citation: Real H. Starting an Urgent Care in a New Era. J Urgent Care Med. 2025; 19(5)37-39 The urgent care industry has come a long way over the last several decades. With 2024 being the first year where …
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Between May, 20231 and December, 2024, the number of retail-host clinics in the United States fell 21.7% from 1,750 to 1,370, according to data from National UC Realty. Not only did CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart announce significant clinic closures in 2024, there has been little to no growth among the remaining retail clinic operators. The top 5 retail hosts make up 95% of in-store clinics nationally and only 2% of total clinics are in independent …
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CVS Health recently launched a re-engineered smartphone app that hopes to make the consumer experience better, according to the Wall Street Journal. It includes prescription refill ordering by scanning a prescription package barcode and tools that offer more prescription price transparency. It also has a feature for scheduling appointments at MinuteClinics, video visits with a provider, and checking insurance coverage. Customer reward points and benefits are streamlined in the new CVS app interface. Also just …
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A meta-analysis found that the global prevalence of reported penicillin allergy is 9.4% (ranging from 5-15%), as published in the Journal of Infection, however, much of the data could be skewed because it comes from high-income countries. Researchers analyzed 174 studies from 28 countries. Of those, 72% of the studies were conducted in the United States (95 studies), United Kingdom (18), and Australia (18). Even so, previous research has shown that 95% of people identified …
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