StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Workers’ Compensation, Medicare and S Codes

Q. The following example is a common occurrence in our urgent care center when billing workers compensation (WC) claims: Patient A comes to the urgent care center for treatment of injuries sustained while on the job with Employer B. Patient A says, “My boss sent me here because it was close.” Now, Patient A has no insurance, no claim number, and no authorization for treatment, just his employer’s name and a supervisor’s name. Who is …

Bayes’ Theorem and Urgent Care Medicine: Why it Matters

John Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP How many times have you encountered a patient who presents with an issue and tells you about a previously diagnosed condition with which he or she is having ongoing symptoms? It happens to me nearly every shift. A 35-year-old male presents with chronic back pain. He has been to your urgent care center a number of times in the past and presents again with a variation of the same …

Clinical Challenge: September, 2014

The Case This patient presented with a jammed thumb. View the images taken (Figure 1) and consider what your diagnosis would be.

Splenic Laceration

Urgent message: Visceral injury is possible in association with the seemingly minor trauma seen in urgent care, underscoring the importance of remaining alert for “red flag” signs and symptoms and judiciously using advanced diagnostics. Introduction Blunt abdominal trauma occurs in 10% to 15% of injured children.1 History and specifically mechanism of injury, and physical exam are important when a patient presents to the clinic with a suspected blunt abdominal trauma. Usually, injuries to the intra-abdominal …

Psychiatric treatment as an urgent care model

Urgent message: Offering mental health services in an urgent care setting could facilitate treatment for conditions such as depression and help eliminate the stigma associated with psychiatric care. Introduction Consumers value urgent care for its on-demand access to medical treatment without waiting to schedule a doctor’s appointment and for its cost savings over hospital emergency rooms (ERs). While urgent care centers have historically focused on treating coughs, sniffles, cuts, scrapes, sprains and strains, the convenience …

An Urgent Care Approach to Joint and Soft-Tissue Injection/ Aspiration: Part 1

Urgent message: Injection/aspiration therapy for selected musculoskeletal complaints is becoming more common in urgent care practice. Providers need a thorough understanding of injection/aspiration procedures and associated risks to be equipped to deliver rescue therapy to patients. THOMAS V. GOCKE, III, MS, ATC, PA-C, DFAAPA Joint pain, joint effusion, and recurrent soft-tissue trigger point irritation are common presentations in urgent care. As more and more patients present seeking immediate relief of such symptoms, it’s important that …

September 2014

Abstracts in Urgent Care – September 2014

Antibiotics and middle ear effusion Key point: Treatment with antibiotics seems to reduce the duration of middle ear effusion. Citation: Tapiainen T, Kujala T, Renko M, et al. Effect of antimicrobial treatment of acute otitis media on the daily disappearance of middle ear effusion: A placebo-controlled trial. JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168(7):635-641. Authors in this randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial compared 84 children aged 6 months to 15 years with acute otitis media who were either given …

2014 Urgent Care Buyer's Guide

Security Risk Assessment: Protecting Patients and Practice

Securing protected health information (PHI) is a goal we all share. Collectively, however, we are relatively clueless about how to achieve this, largely because of the massive amount of technology that almost all of us have adopted. A simple understanding begins with the most basic categorization of the technology that we use to store, transfer, and manage PHI: Software and hardware. Hardware includes all devices (desktops, laptops, routers, EKGs, and mobile devices) that store or …