Urgent message: Ultrasound can provide essential data in the urgent care evaluation of gynecological and obstetrical problems, such as suspected ectopic pregnancy (and is the test of choice for first-trimester pregnant women with abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding). Andrew Alaya, MD, MSc and Harold Pelikan, MD INTRODUCTION An ectopic pregnancy or extrauterine gravidity (EUG) is a pregnancy that implants outside of the uterus. In 90% to 95% of EUGs, the pregnancy lies in the fallopian …
Read MoreUse of a Quality Improvement Tool for the Evaluation of Healthcare Disparities in Urgent Care: A Case Example for Bacterial Pneumonia
Urgent message: While healthcare disparities have been studied in several healthcare settings, it is unclear whether they persist in urgent care. This study may serve as a quality improvement tool to assess whether these disparities persist in an urgent care clinic. Derrick Murcia and Lindsey Fish, MD Citation: Murcia D, Fish L. Evaluation of healthcare disparities in urgent care: a case example for bacterial pneumonia. J Urgent Care Med. 2022;16(4):23-27. Epub ahead of print September …
Read MoreAre Insurance Plans Still Waiving Cost-Sharing?
A common question that I receive is whether COVID-19 testing is still being covered by insurance plans. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) require insurance plans to cover diagnostic testing without cost-sharing (cost-sharing being the amount assigned to patient responsibility; it includes deductibles, copays, and co-insurance). The word “diagnostic” is significant. COVID-19 testing falls into two categories: Diagnostic – used for treatment. Patients are …
Read MoreTime to Presentation for Acute Otitis Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Urgent message: Concern over the potential spread of COVID-19 may (or may not) have affected the timeliness with which parents chose to present with children who had symptoms concerning for acute otitis media, thereby throwing the concept of “delayed” antibiotic prescribing into question. Emily J. Montgomery, MD; Brian R. Lee, PhD, MPH; Amanda Montalbano, MD, MPH; Amanda Nedved, MD Citation: Montgomery RJ, Lee BR, Montalbano A, Nedved A. Time to presentation for acute otitis media …
Read MoreA 27-Year-Old Male with Chest Pain and No Reported Medical History
Chamber Abnormalities: Pathologic or Not? A 27-year-old male with no reported medical history presents with chest pain. He relays several weeks of intermittent symptoms which started after lifting heavy boxes. The pain is sharp, located in the mid-chest and is otherwise non-tearing, non-pleuritic, non-positional and not associated with exertion. On examination, the patient is in no acute distress, and appears lean without cachexia or wasting. The pain is reproduced with shoulder extension. It resolves with …
Read MoreA Legal Quandary: Poor Care…or Malpractice?
Urgent message: Failure to consider subtleties and the context in which a patient presents can lead to insufficient differential diagnoses and, therefore, mis- or missed diagnoses that leave the patient at risk for poor outcomes and the provider at risk for litigation. Michael Weinstock, MD and Charles Pilcher, MD Back pain is usually back pain, whether it’s from a muscular strain or another self-limiting, non-serious cause. But there is potential danger lurking below the surface, …
Read MoreA 68-Year-Old Woman with a Rash of Several Weeks’ Duration
The patient is a 68-year-old woman who presents with a rash she says developed on her trunk over a span of several weeks. On examination, there were multiple confluent, orange-red plaques on the trunk and arms with “islands of sparing” within them. The rash had a primarily truncal distribution and was pruritic. She was feeling well otherwise. View the image and consider what your next steps and diagnosis would be. Resolution of the case is …
Read MoreA 15-Year-Old Boy with a Painful Elbow After a Baseball Game
The patient is a 15-year-old boy who presents to urgent care with a painful medial right elbow he and his parents attribute to pitching in a baseball game earlier in the day. View the images taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
Read MoreConsiderations for Urgent Care Operators on Equal Pay Legislation and Enforcement
Urgent message: As we see a shift to an overwhelming female workforce in urgent care, it is essential that urgent care operators understand the conditions of, and develop policies to be compliant with, employment laws requiring equal pay among genders. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, is President of Experity Networks and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. INTRODUCTION Many urgent care centers already pay the same hourly rate for all …
Read MoreAn Underrecognized Epidemic: Toxic Positivity in Medicine
Joshua Russell, MD, MSc, FCUCM, FACEP A colleague, Dr. Mitchell we’ll call him, told me about a PA that he was supervising recently who made a great catch in a patient with a swollen, blue finger: Achenbach syndrome. When the PA presented the presumptive diagnosis, Dr. Mitchell, unfamiliar with the condition, had to Google it before seeing the patient. Our PA was right, though. The patient walked out of clinic, happy to have a benign …
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