Practice Management
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: Coworkers who change personalities when the boss isn’t around are a reality of the workplace. However, there are steps you can take to handle such toxic colleagues, and improve workplace morale and team dynamics. Every urgent care center has that one employee who is utterly pleasant …
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Just this month, we shared data from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners indicating that the number of nurse practitioners has grown considerably over the past year, and is expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Many are likely to gravitate toward urgent care, given this industry’s own continued growth. We’re not the only ones to realize the overall trend for NPs, however. State legislatures from coast to coast are taking a …
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A lesson in reducing unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics could be gleaned from a new study based in a large academic dental practice, of all places. It showed a 73% decrease in antibiotic prescribing vs baseline. The study population included 635 Medicaid members who sought urgent care for oral complaints at Illinois’ largest oral healthcare provider. Before the mandated intervention (patient and provider education and clinical guideline development), 8.5% of visits included a prescription for an …
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One of the challenges of assessing patients for concussion in the urgent care center is that, most often, the examining clinician has had no previous contact with a given patient; there’s no baseline to compare their current condition against. A new piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association brings news of a new tool that diminishes the importance of a baseline for patient who may have sustained a concussion, however. EyeBox, approved …
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Picture a Medicare patient who needs to see a provider today. It’s not an emergency, but they can’t wait until next Monday, when their primary care doc can squeeze them in. The solution is easy: urgent care, right? The only wrinkle is, they don’t drive anymore. So, they call an ambulance whose only option is to deliver them to the ED even thought their complaint is nonemergent. They wait for hours as the cost mounts. …
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Millennials and “Gen Zers” are more likely than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to shun traditional primary care offices in favor of urgent care and other walk-in options, according to a newly released report from Accenture. Lack of convenience and responsiveness are among top reasons cited. It’s not just an American phenomenon, either; the nearly 8,000 consumers who took part in the research chimed in not only from the U.S. but also from Australia, England, …
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One of the key attributes of urgent care is that the cost is lower than patients would face in the emergency room—which is a benefit not only for them, but for their insurers. Even so, the cost may be too high for some lower income patients, especially those who don’t have insurance or can come up with the copay. You may have a better option than either turning them away or eating the cost, however. …
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A 30-year-old woman presented to urgent care complaining of bilateral knee pain. She denies any strenuous activity, falls, or recent illness, but states that she has lived with the pain “for a while.” View the image taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be.
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Sometimes it may seem to patients like it would take an act of Congress for them to obtain their own health records. They might literally get that if new rules proposed by federal health regulators are adopted. Among the issues the draft covers are technology standards meant to unlock digital data in EHRs. One part of the proposal, for example, would empower patients to access all their health information electronically—including the provider’s notes, hospital records, …
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HIPAA is as complex as it is necessary, especially with the threat of data breaches lurking around every virtual corner. Failure to safeguard HIPAA-protected information is a threat to your patients and to your entire operation. As such, an informed perspective on compliance is the best safeguard from violations. The Urgent Care Association is hosting a live webinar designed to help you ensure just that. HIPAA: What to Know About Privacy & Security is scheduled …
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