Practice Management
Chances are you have some crutches, as well as a few cold packs and various slings and splints, in your urgent care center. Patients come in, get an x-ray and a solid, timely diagnosis, and you send them on their way with what they need to stay safe until they follow up with an orthopedist or their primary care provider. What if you offered more than the necessities, however, to an extent that durable medical …
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The “pain scale” is a standard tool to help patients quantify their level of discomfort so you can administer the appropriate degree of pain relief. The problem is, it doesn’t necessarily work. Some patients may overstate their pain to game the system and get a prescription; with the opiate crisis still raging throughout the country, the consequence of this could literally by deadline. On the other extreme, stoic types may not want to admit they’re …
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Urgent message: Convenient, quality, same-day care is one of the hallmarks of the urgent care setting. Many operators have moved to offer preregistration to speed visits along, but the question of whether an online appointment system would be effective in further improving efficiency in visits has not been studied previously. Introduction The aim of our study was to evaluate how the implementation of an online appointment scheduling system would affect wait times and throughput in …
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Specialty urgent care centers of every stripe are on the rise across the country. One of the arguably most natural fits, orthopedics, is proving to be an especially attractive prospect for a Michigan couple who’ve launched an aggressive plan to open 32 specialty locations over the next 5 years. All will be operated as OrthoNOW franchises. Right now, Kelly and Mark Olin’s flagship location in Flint, MI averages around 20 visits a day, though they’re …
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The Urgent Care Association, long a proponent of sound antibiotic stewardship as a safeguard against drug-resistant bacteria, is working with the George Washington University Antibiotic Resistance Center on an initiative to improve antibiotic prescribing practices. One key element, through the College of Urgent Care Medicine, is an antibiotic stewardship toolkit based on the Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. UCA also just took part in—and sponsored—a …
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Among the proposed changes in the newly released 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) is a new urgent care specialty measure set. The Urgent Care Association and the College of Urgent Care Medicine had asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to include 12 specific measures, 11 of which were included in CMS’s proposal. The creation of a proper set is expected to help urgent care providers select measures when fulfilling the quality component …
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MedExpress, which falls under the umbrella of UnitedHealthGroup’s Optum healthcare business, is planning to launch 12 new urgent care centers in Texas in the near future, with the first three expected to open between now and October. As recently as December 2017, it had just two in the entire state. The move is part of an expansive plan to increase UnitedHealthGroup’s healthcare holdings across the country. The company’s management has acknowledged a long-term goal for …
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Walgreens has launched a new “digital marketplace” designed to guide patients to the best care setting (out of the 17 partners they’re working with, at least) for whatever their symptoms might be. The idea is to simplify the process of deciding whether an urgent care center, hospital emergency room, specialty provider—or a Walgreens health provider, of course—will be best suited to offer the patient the right level of care. Physician house calls are also possible …
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Physician burnout is at least as dangerous as unsafe workplace conditions when it comes to medical errors, according to a new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. In fact, it indicates that physicians with burnout are more than twice as likely to self-report a medical error compared with those without burnout. The potential consequences of that are dramatic; existing data show that med errors are a factor in as many as 200,000 deaths annually in …
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A few years ago, it seemed like every urgent care clinician had a story about a nail gun injury. This year’s unexpected menace, however, is the humble avocado. Avocado consumption in the United States has risen 250% since 2002—which is great news for growers, but apparently a danger to unsuspecting aficionados. The problem isn’t disease or contamination, according to a Northwestern University emergency room physician quoted in a recent Advisory Board Daily Briefing. It’s operator …
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