Practice Management
URGENT MESSAGE: Unlike most retail and service businesses in which customer transactions result in immediate cash in the register, the nature of insurance and government billing in urgent care creates accounts receivable, which can be a complicating factor when buying or selling an urgent care practice. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Practice Management Editor of JUCM—The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, a member of the Board of Directors of the Urgent Care Association of …
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Digging into the communal nacho platter at a Super Bowl party could give celebrants a bad case of eater’s remorse—in the form of influenza, especially among the hometown fans of the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos. It’s no joke: A new study published in the American Journal of Health Economics reports that the death rate attributed to the flu was significantly higher in regions that Super Bowl teams came from between 1974 and 2009. Researchers …
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The key to gaining patient loyalty is ensuring patient satisfaction. But how do you measure that—outside of noticing that you don’t have many repeat visits? One of the earliest and best-regarded entrants into the urgent care market, David Stern, MD will suggest approaches in Measuring Patient Satisfaction: Keeping It Simple, a one-hour webinar to be hosted by the Urgent Care Association (UCA) February 18 at 1 p.m., Central. Dr. Stern is CEO of Practice Velocity, …
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The Zika virus has not had a significant impact on the health of the US population; however, worried patients may still be turning to urgent care providers if they have suspicious symptoms after traveling in affected areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. Still others may have questions about what precautions to take if they have a trip planned. Operators would be wise to be armed with reassuring answers, and to know what to do …
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Those who herald the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) as a success continue to be vexed by the six million or so citizens who are eligible for Medicaid but simply don’t sign up for it. Perhaps that should not be surprising, however, given that most people eligible for Medicaid are exempt from having to pay a penalty for being uninsured—one of the ACA’s prime incentives for individuals to get insured—and those eligible can sign …
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Healthcare corporations continue to deepen their urgent care portfolios through acquisition—and they’re seeing dividends while also planning to continue buying up properties. HCA Holdings welcomed more than a million patients into its ever-expanding urgent care units within the last year—an increase of 500%, according to the company. Having made a number of acquisitions in the urgent care marketplace, as we’ve told you, HCA now has 66 centers in the U.S. The hospital giant has reported …
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The best indicator of whether a physician is likely to have a malpractice claim made against him—yes, they are disproportionately male—appears to be whether a previous claim has ever been made. In fact, researchers at Stanford report that 1% of doctors are linked to nearly 33% of all paid General surgeons are among the doctors most likely to be the subjects of paid malpractice claims. Further, that group appears to share some distinct characteristics. In …
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Urgent care practices that focus on helping patients stay up to date on immunization—such as occupational medicine and travel medicine providers, or those that cater to seniors and families with children—take note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a few changes in its recommendations this year. For adults, a recently licensed meningococcal serogroup B vaccine and human papillomavirus vaccine have been added, and the recommendation for pneumococcal vaccination has been revised from …
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Data from the 2014 Urgent Care Chart Survey of 1,778,075 blinded visits by patients to more than 800 different urgent care clinics, conducted by the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, reveal that for 2014, the top three diagnosis codes at U.S. urgent care centers involved, in descending order: Wounds,15.9% Sinusitis, 11.4% Respiratory conditions, other, 11.2% The bottom three diagnosis codes involved, in descending order: Influenza, 1.6% Tonsillitis, 1.5% Gynecologic issues, 1.5% The survey’s methodology and …
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