Practice Management
A year ago at this time, fear was high that the United States would be hit with a “twindemic” of influenza and COVID-19. It never materialized, largely due to the fact that measures taken to protect ourselves from the SARS-CoV-2 virus (social distancing, frequent handwashing, wearing a face cover, etc.) had the unintended benefit of keeping flu activity low. This year, however, with many people vaccinated against COVID-19 and letting other measures slide, we might …
Read More
While patients with asthma were not found to be at greater risk for COVID-19 or poor outcomes with the virus early on in the pandemic, it now appears that children with asthma are more likely to wind up in the hospital if they become infected. In fact, according to an article published in MedPage Today, a retrospective study of approximately 750,000 children (5 to 17 years of age) in Scotland showed a greater than sixfold …
Read More
Just last week we shared a story illustrating how poor access to multiple healthcare options, especially urgent care, can leave rural and tertiary communities with few choices other than the emergency room and, consequently, vulnerable to exorbitant bills for nonemergent problems. Fast Pace Urgent Care apparently recognized this as well, as it recently announced acquisition of a certified rural health provider with 15 walk-in clinics. JUCM has been tracking the opportunities that could exist for …
Read More
In a perfectly balanced system, patients who have nonemergent complaints would hop in the car and walk through the doors of an urgent care center shortly thereafter (and, most likely, be back home within the hour). If they truly had a more severe issue, they could go to a hospital emergency room uncluttered with people who don’t really need to be there. That ideal doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual options of many patients, however, as …
Read More
Too many patients are telling the media that they refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 because “it doesn’t work,” pointing to the growing number of breakthrough cases as justification. While it’s true that the number of confirmed cases in patients who are fully vaccinated continues to increase (and is likely to grow more steeply now that the Omicron variant is spreading around the globe), the associated death rate is simply not keeping pace. In fact, …
Read More
Just a week after news of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in South Africa and other African first emerged, cases were confirmed in a growing number of other countries around the world—including, most recently, the United States. At this point no deaths attributed to Omicron have been reported, but the fact that it is heavily mutated means widespread infection is likely, with “severe consequences” according to the World Health Organization. While several countries are imposing …
Read More
With Thanksgiving family get-togethers over, college kids have gone back to campus and younger children are back in class, ready to share not only amusing holiday anecdotes but new cases of COVID-19, as well. Elementary schools in some areas are already reporting a jump in new cases compared with weeks leading up to the long weekend, practically ensuring that more cases will follow as the 14-day incubation period unfolds. Some state and local health departments …
Read More
There continue to be individuals walking among us who don’t believe that the COVID-19 vaccine is effective and safe. And probably even more who don’t think wearing a mask reduces risk of infection. If patients or staff complain to you that it’s all overkill with no benefit to be had, share the results of two new studies indicating that both vaccination and mask wearing are effective tools to slow the spread of the virus. (This …
Read More
As of this writing, the United States has just confirmed its first case of COVID-19 attributed to the Omicron variant. Seeing how there was a time when we were saying the same thing about the SARS-CoV-2 virus in general—and then the Delta variant—let’s assume many more are on the horizon. The World Health Organization has called it a “variant of concern,” at least partly due to the fact that it has a higher number of …
Read More
Well before the COVID-19 virus reached pandemic proportions, opioid abuse and related overdoses and deaths had been declared an epidemic in the United States. However, thanks to factors such as social isolation, economic instability, fear over disease, and reduced access to health resources, drug overdoses have reached historic levels over the past 2 years—to the point that more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses over the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to the …
Read More