Practice Management
When a patient leaves your urgent care center after receiving excellent care and service, usually the most you hope for is that they’ll tell a friend. When they decide they want to tell the whole community, you know you’re doing something right. Such was the case for a patient after visiting Virtua Urgent Care in Voorhees Township, NJ the morning of New Year’s Eve. As he recounts in a letter to the Courier-Post, he woke …
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It was a long time coming, but as of January 1 patients covered by Tricare Prime can now visit any in-network urgent care center they want without a referral. The pilot program Congress instituted in May 2016 has become policy, doing away with restrictions that limited urgent care visits to two per year without receiving a referral. Point-of-service charges no longer apply, either. Tricare notes that the referral policy could be reinstated for 2019, and …
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It’s well established (though not accepted by all patients) that getting a flu shot is the best way to reduce risk for influenza infection, and that the need to do so is especially great for older patients. New research out of Spain shows that seniors who get a flu shot every year see a cumulative benefit that helps keep them out of the hospital. The authors of the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association …
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Urgent message: Physicians are expected to be leaders in the urgent care practice, but they are also human and prone to inappropriate behavior. It’s thus critical for urgent care operators to establish processes for investigating, documenting, and responding to allegations of physician misconduct. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. On any given day, there is no …
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It would be easy to make the argument that social media—and Big Media, at times—have done a great job of overriding scientific proof that the best way to avoid getting the flu is by getting vaccinated. It seems that every reluctant patient has it on the authority of YouTube or Twitter that vaccines do more harm than good, no matter how much data you throw at them. Some may have even seen the Tweet television …
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Flexibility and responsiveness to patient needs have become synonymous with the urgent care industry—though often it’s smaller, urgent care-exclusive operators who have the wherewithal to act so fast. Novant Hospital in Charlotte, NC is taking a page from their playbook, though, by responding to a perceived need in the community and opening the Women’s Urgent Care Center. Averaging roughly 50 patients per week, the clinic would be hard pressed to survive as a stand-alone entity, …
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The Mercy health system and GoHealth Urgent Care have big plans for 2018, partnering on a joint venture that will create a growing network of urgent care centers across the Midwest. GoHealth already covers both coasts with 80 urgent care centers in Connecticut, New York, California, and Oregon; they’ll launch more than 30 cobranded Mercy-GoHealth Urgent Care Centers over the next 2 years in St. Louis and Springfield, MO; Oklahoma City; and northwest Arkansas. Hospital …
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In the year 2000, Google famously adopted the corporate code of conduct motto, Don’t Be Evil to represent its approach to both business and workplace behavior. At the time, the approach seemed sensible, but today it feels strikingly out of touch. It’s a low bar that misses the mark on one of the most pressing issues of our time: respect and freedom from harassment, at work, at home, and at play. Don’t be evil is …
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Urgent message: In addition to drug testing their own employees, many urgent care centers offer drug testing as a service to other employers. Therefore, it’s important to understand the laws affecting the privacy of drug screen results. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine Introduction It’s standard procedure throughout the country for employers to require …
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