Practice Management
By and large, urgent care operators are very diligent when it comes to following the guidelines laid down in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996—much better knowns as HIPAA. However, even without malice aforethought, you may inadvertently stray into noncompliance, leaving your business open to serious penalties. Such was pointed out in a FierceHealth article that discussed ways it’s easy for medical providers in general to slip out of compliance; in fact, …
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The Department of Health and Human Services seems to be following President Trump’s call to make healthcare pricing more transparent, according to an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal—a move which, if it comes to fruition, would likely boost urgent care’s reputation as a lower cost alternative than the emergency room. Most recently, the DOH issued a call for public comment on whether patients should know the “true” cost of care before they …
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With the recently proposed prior authorization bill in the news, the magazine Managed Care chose an opportune time to give its readers fresh insights into urgent care. An article in the current issue looks at a few representative New England urgent care markets to illustrate why the marketplace continues to grow, and its relative merits compared with other settings (notably, the emergency room). Urgent Care Association CEO Laurel Stoimenoff, PT, CHC is quoted extensively, as …
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When we last updated you on the measles outbreak in the United States, there were 465 cases spread across 19 states. At the time, that was the highest number of U.S. cases since 2000, when measles was declared “eliminated.” Well, the number of cases now sits at 839—a jump of 374 cases—in 23 states, all diagnosed between January 1 and May 10 of this year. One challenge: The potential to contract measles isn’t limited to …
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As we told you last month, the private equity firm Warburg Pincus had big plans to merge DocuTAP and Practice Velocity, the two leading technology and services companies serving the urgent care marketplace. That goal has now been realized in the form of Experity, whose mission will be to continue to support and invest in all the current software platforms and services previously provided by the merging companies while offering customers—some 4,000 clinics across the …
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Urgent message: While conventional customer service training emphasizes the need to listen to patient concerns, the best response typically isn’t an apology, but rather corrective action to either solve or prevent the underlying shortcoming. 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. Customer service is at the heart of any business. Whether it’s a retail outlet or an …
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Social media platforms can be more than a treasure trove of baby pictures, cat videos, and inflammatory political rhetoric. Some urgent care physicians have become adept at utilizing their features for the good of their patients, their practices, and even their careers. Tyeese L. Gaines, DO, MBA is one. The founder of NOWMed Urgent Care in Jersey City, NJ was quoted extensively in a recent post on the AMA’s website, detailing how Facebook, Twitter, and …
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A bipartisan collective of legislators wants to put forth a bill in Congress to streamline the prior authorization process in order to facilitate faster, lower-cost care. Since those are the same key attributes that continue to fuel the growth of urgent care, on the surface it might sound like the bill could boost our industry. Not so fast. According to congressional staff working behind the scenes, as quoted in an article published by MedPage Today, …
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For the first time ever in the United States, the number of physicians who are employed by someone else is greater than the number of self-employed physicians, according to new data from the American Medical Association. Overall, 47% of all physicians were employees in 2018, up 6% since the last time the AMA did similar research in 2012—compared with 46% who described themselves as “self-employed” in a clinical setting. It’s part of an overall trend …
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Parts of the South and Midwest are fighting to recover from severe storms that brought tornadoes, flooding, death, and destruction recently. And for every displaced family there is a team of first responders working tirelessly to help their communities pick up the pieces. Unfortunately, they can continue to be high risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that flood waters can carry human, animal, medical, industrial, and household waste. Exposure can cause wound …
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