Practice Management
Point32Health, parent company of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, is just the latest healthcare entity to fall prey to cyberattacks, having acknowledged that it was hit with a ransomware attack that left patient and provider data exposed. As reported by WBZ CBS Boston, some providers have also missed being paid on care they provided to Harvard Pilgrim plan members. One such psychologist was quoted in the WBZ story as likening the cyber world to “the Wild West” …
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Fact: Ketamine (Ketalar) is a legal, approved medication available in the United States as an anesthetic agent indicated for diagnostic and surgical procedures that do not require skeletal muscle relaxation; for induction of anesthesia preceding general anesthesia; and to supplement low-potency agents such as nitrous oxide. It’s also used as an anesthetic agent for animals. More ominous fact: Seizures of illicit ketamine rose 1,100% from 2017 to 2022. Maybe worst of all, a newsletter article …
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The COVID-19 pandemic could have ushered in a golden age for telemedicine. In fact, many healthcare facilities (urgent care centers among them) bent over backwards to get their digital game up to speed so they could offer patients care safely, if remotely, when there may not have been any other options at all. Despite that opportunity, according to a new report from Experian Health, telehealth still looks like a less-than-ideal entry point into healthcare. The …
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The evolution of urgent care could be likened to a crusade. In the early days there were few believers, and those physicians who did dare to open up an urgent care center were derided as a “doc in a box.” Now, of course, venture capitalists and healthcare systems have verified the viability of the industry as a profit center. But some of the early skeptics have become some of the most vocal advocates of the …
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As regular readers know, JUCM is unique in that it regularly publishes original, urgent care-specific research. Most (if not all) of that research has been conducted by urgent care providers and operators. Historically, however, urgent care has been all but invisible to mainstream medical researchers. There are indications that could be changing, however, as lately there have been several pieces of research conducted not by urgent care entities, but more traditional bodies that are using …
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Who knows what the next COVID-19 “season” may bring in terms of incidence and severity? The virus has been completely unpredictable, to date—although new data are revealing interesting likelihoods, including at least one specific to urgent care. According to a new article published by BMC Infectious Diseases, COVID patients who present to acute unscheduled episodic care (AUEC, which included both emergency rooms and urgent care centers) are more likely to require hospitalization compared with those …
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Retail chains like CVS and Walgreens have plopped down billions of dollars to try to capture a piece of the primary care marketplace. It hasn’t gone well. So, as noted in a new article published by Home Health Care News, they’re trying a different, less competitive approach: home care. In the case of CVS Health, that meant again digging deep to buy an established enterprise, specifically Signify Health. And they’re open to buying more such …
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It’s unlikely anyone working in your urgent care center would post confidential patient information online, even while venting about an especially tough day at work. Unfortunately, it’s not an impossibility, however, so a timely reminder to the team may be in order. If you need evidence of that, consider a suit filed against a hospital in Oregon alleging that an employee took—and shared online—photos of a burn victim being treated there. He died of his …
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As kids count the days until schools get out for the summer, parents may be scrambling to meet requirements for pre-camp physicals and address vaccination shortfalls. As such, some urgent care operators see this time of year as an opportunity to build foot traffic and gain new patients. Cottage Urgent Care in Santa Barbara Country, California is one. As reported by the Santa Barbara News-Press, Cottage offers discounted physicals for local students signed up for …
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Incidence of multiple sexually transmitted infections has been growing for several years, according to just-released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases of syphilis alone grew at a 32% rate from 2020 to 2021; gonorrhea has climbed steadily over a 5-year period; and chlamydia cases have been picking up after a brief, minor reduction in 2020. At the same time, multiple factors point to a crisis of accessing care. For one, many …
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