Practice Management
It wasn’t that long ago that we told you HCA Healthcare was buying BetterMed, adding 12 locations in central Virginia to the fold. Now HCA has announced an even bigger purchase: MD Now Urgent Care and its 59 centers in Florida, giving it 170 locations in 19 markets. The deal is yet another example of the value that companies with substantial hospital holdings see in acquiring urgent care properties. For more insights on that phenomenon …
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As the business of selling marijuana has grown from your neighborhood dealer to medical dispensaries and stores licensed to sell weed for recreational uses, emergency rooms have started seeing an increase in patients presenting with cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS). Symptoms include dehydration, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. An article just published by JAMA Network reveals a connection between the commercialization of the marijuana industry and a 13-fold increase in CHS-related visits to the emergency room …
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OakBend Medical Center in Richmond, TX is scrambling to deal with a ransomware attack by a group calling itself Daixin Team. As reported by the online tech news publication The Register, the attack initially shut down the hospital’s communication and IT systems and “stole” more than 1 million patient records. It’s unclear what the group’s demands or intentions are, though they’ve threatened to release a “full leak” of the data. The threat of cyber crime …
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JUCM and JUCM News readers are well aware that the United States has seen a steady increase in the occurrence of sexually transmitted disease for years now. Unfortunately, it appears that the trend will continue for the foreseeable future, leading at least one physician to express concern that we’re in the midst of “pandemic venereal disease.” This is backed up by fresh data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing increases in gonorrhea, …
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An already-dire situation for the rural hospital market is getting tougher by the month as costs across the board to continue rise. As noted in an article published by Healthcare Dive, labor, medications, and everyday supplies keep going up while patient volume and reimbursements are stagnant or even falling in some areas. It’s gotten so bad that the American Hospital Association is expressing concern that access to care could become a major challenge—which could point …
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COVID-19 has taken up a disproportionate amount of time in the context of what we consider “typical” urgent care presentation. Now that we’re moving steadily (if slowly) to what used to be normal, you can expect patients to present more often with concerns for minor illness and injuries from sprains to lacerations. The latter, in particular, requires a certain level of skill and familiarity to optimize the chance for positive outcomes. JUCM will host a …
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A survey of physicians published by Mayo Clinic Proceedings found a “dramatic” increase in burnout coinciding with lower satisfaction scores on work–life integration (WLI) 21 months into the COVID-19 pandemic compared with earlier periods. By 2021, 62.8% of physicians who participated admitted to at least one manifestation of burnout, compared with 38.2% in 2020. WLI fell from 46.1% in 2020 to 30.2% in 2021. Emotional exhaustion scores tracked along with those findings, increasing from a …
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Public service initiatives have done a thorough job of introducing children and the general public to “stranger danger.” However, there is no corresponding widespread campaign for adults who are legally bound to report viable concerns that a child could be a victim of sexual abuse (ie, mandatory reporters), including educators, clergy, healthcare professionals, and others. Rather, it’s up to those various disciplines to ensure their cohorts understand how to recognize red flags—including warning signs that …
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An osteopathic physician in Illinois was just sentenced to 1 year in prison for writing alprazolam prescriptions for patients for nontherapeutic use. According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, he 1) didn’t examine the six patients he was prescribing for, 2) knew there was no medical need for the drugs, and 3) had knowledge that the drugs would be sold or abused. Not surprisingly, it was also shown that …
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In the all-hands-on-deck peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many states cleared the way for physician assistants to take on more authority—temporarily, in order to get through the crisis. Now that things have smoothed out a bit (at least for now), PAs are pushing for at least some of those relaxed limitations to become permanent, according to an article published by Becker’s Hospital Review. The article goes on to point out that some physician groups, including …
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