bnapolitano, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

An Educated Patient—and Provider—May Help Improve Opioid Prescribing Practices

As healthcare providers in every setting continue the fight against rampant opioid abuse and addiction—with urgent care centers often the target of drug seekers—there’s new hope that relatively simple educational initiatives could help turn the tide. In a study published in the journal Pain Medicine, 167 clinicians at the University of Washington were asked to complete an educational program on the safe and responsible prescribing of opioid medications for the management of acute pain. The …

Could Supporting a Healthy Lifestyle Have the Community Running to Your Clinic?

Parents and urgent care providers probably have any number of things in common, but one that would top the list is wanting to see children grown up healthy and fit. MedSpring Urgent Care in Austin, TX hit on a great way to support that mutual objective while also getting its name out to the community in a very positive light when it donated $17,500 to a local running club whose mission is to help children …

More Incentive to Curb Overprescribing: Nearly 20,000 U.S. Deaths Due to Staph Last Year

More than 20,000 deaths in the United Sates were attributed specifically to Staph infections in 2018, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With resistance to antibiotics being a constant threat—especially in urgent care, where patients are more likely to turn when they wake up with a sore throat—the Urgent Care Association jumped on this issue by forging partnerships to spread awareness of the dangers and educate both clinicians and …

What’s in a Name? Plenty, UCA Tells the VA

The Department of Veteran Affairs has loosened its regulations about where veterans can seek care considerably in the past couple of years. In certain conditions, such as distance from or availability of care at a VA facility, they can head straight to a walk-in clinic without preauthorization. The Urgent Care Association took notice—close notice, in fact, and is urging the VA to tweak the policy. While the idea of allowing the patients it covers to …

Evolutions in the Healthcare Market Are Changing the Urgent Care Employment Model

Urgent care’s roots are in entrepreneurial physicians who felt there was a better way to practice medicine, and blazed a new path that led to the industry we see today. As urgent care veterans know, though, it wasn’t too long before health systems recognized that a) the model really does work and b) urgent care was creeping in on their territory. So, they started buying up existing urgent care operations or starting their own. Consequently, …

Physicians Push Back on Growing Independence for PAs and NPs

Physician assistants and nurse practitioners—or, collectively, advanced practice providers (APPs)—already play an integral role in urgent care medicine, and are taking on more and more responsibility in many settings. Lately, some states have started taking a closer look at how much physician oversight they really need, opting to give them more independence. As with most change in any walk of life, however, there’s another side to the coin. A new post on the HealthLeaders website …

Building Engaged, Productive Teams by Saying Thank You

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care, LLC and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Urgent message: In an era of widespread worker disengagement, one simple way to improve morale in your urgent care operation is to embrace a “culture of gratitude” which starts with saying the simple phrase, thank you. America has a workplace engagement problem, as evidenced by a consensus …

Fresh Data Show Freestanding ERs Cost 22 Times More Than Urgent Care

Urgent care veterans—and any patient whose been hit with a surprise bill—know that the cost of urgent care is far lower than the cost of a trip to a freestanding emergency room, even when the resultant diagnoses are the same. And yet, the vast majority of visits to freestanding EDs are related to nonemergent complaints that could be safely managed in an urgent care center at a fraction of the cost. UnitedHealthGroup just added more …

Senate Committee Chair Asks for Ideas to Lower Health Costs, and UCA Obliges

When Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued a call for recommendations on how to lower the cost of healthcare in the United States, the Urgent Care Association put together a response packed with data on the relative merits of urgent care, both in terms of the quality of care and the dramatically lower cost compared with freestanding emergency rooms and hospital-based EDs. UCA suggested that a …

Intermountain Lowers Opioid Prescriptions by 30%—and Isn’t Done Yet

Intermountain started trying to discourage drugseekers from preying on its urgent care centers years ago, before opioid abuse was recognized as the crisis it is today. It’s no surprise, then, that the company launched a successful internal campaign to lower the number of opioid prescriptions its providers issued. However, the 30% reduction they just announced is unsatisfactory in their own eyes, having set a goal of reducing them by 40%. So, the company has vowed …