Practice Management
Two years ago this month, we reported on the opening of an urgent care facility within the confines of D/FW International Airport in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX. The thinking at the time was that the combination of roughly 65,000 people working on site and around 100 times that number—65 million people—passing through the airport yearly made for a substantial customer base. Another operation followed suit, at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. However viable as the …
Read More
The United States Department of Labor has ordered a Mississippi urgent care operator to pay $147,622 in back wages to 16 nurse practitioners who were illegally deprived of overtime pay. The operator classified the NPs as independent contractors rather than employees and, as such, paid them a regular hourly rate—even when they worked more than 40 hours in a week, which is where they ran afoul of the law. The Department of Labor found that …
Read More
Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Urgent message: As the overall appearance of an urgent care facility remains a competitive differentiator and a key to patient satisfaction, operators must allocate the necessary resources to ensure the appealing exteriors and pristine interiors that drive positive patient experiences. It’s common knowledge that when it comes to walk-in …
Read More
Many urgent care operators have found occupational medicine to be a natural fit for their business. If you’re one of them, you know workers’ comp claims go with the territory—in fact, understanding workers’ comp is essential to your survival in the occ med space. And if you’re not operating in that space but are considering jumping in, you need to do so with your eyes wide open. What an Urgent Care Clinician Needs to Know …
Read More
While most Americans may not consider the 2019–2020 flu season even underway yet, federal health officials are warning that the first death of the season—a 4-year-old California child—could be a warning sign of just how bad it’s going to get. The child, who did have underlying health problems, tested positive for influenza earlier this month. That case may indicate this flu season will be picking up steam fast—a notion supported by the just-concluded Australian flu …
Read More
Urgent care operators have gotten more competitive with each other in recent years, working tirelessly to distinguish themselves and investing in new technologies to ensure the overall patient experience continues to exceed expectations. They’ve also had to make it clear to patients that urgent care offers a wider range of services than retail drugstores as those companies have tried to get a piece of the walk-in care action. There’s another setting that’s gone somewhat under …
Read More
It’s safe to say no one reading this would disagree that urgent care centers fulfill an essential role in the U.S. healthcare landscape of 2019. It follows that fair compensation for care provided at an urgent care center should be a given. As you undoubtedly know, that’s not necessarily the case, however, and the Urgent Care Association is trying to make sure the parties with the authority to change that inequity get the message. UCA …
Read More
With flu season in its early days and news reports revealing the true dangers of vaping on a daily basis, it appears the combination of the two could create a “perfect storm” with deadly consequences. Research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reveals that use of e-cigarettes disrupts a person’s innate immune response to viral infections; the effect is especially severe in women, according to the report. Another study, this …
Read More
Urgent care offers convenience that’s just not feasible in a traditional primary care practice, at a price far lower than the emergency room would charge for the same acuity-level of care. That’s why it’s caught on. Similarly, urgent care providers who offer occupational medicine services have found success in offering those benefits to local businesses, especially those whose work force engages in physical labor or has a public safety aspect to it (such as warehouses …
Read More
The patient is a 61-year-old male who presents with a cough. His wife, who is with him, reports that it’s been present “for some time,” though she’s hesitant to quantify that. View the image taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
Read More