Practice Management
The patient is a 23-year-old healthy male presenting for a “wound check” about four weeks after crushing his left fifth finger in a car door. At that time, x-rays were negative for a fracture. He was placed on cephalexin because of a small avulsion of skin on the distal aspect of the finger. Today, you find that the distal aspect of the dermis of the fifth finger has sloughed off. The underlying tissue is pink, …
Read More(In the Beginning recounts the real-life experiences of urgent care owners who have taken the initiative to hang out the proverbial shingle and open a new start-up center. It will be an occasionally recurring feature available exclusively in the digital edition of JUCM.) From marketing to urgent care medicine to triathlons, it seems as though Dr. Cheryl Durstein Decker was literally and figuratively born to run, slowing down only occasionally to help others in her …
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Urgent message: Several specific toxicological emergencies are most likely to be encountered in the urgent care setting. Prompt recognition of their clinical presentation, understanding the pathophysiology/natural disease progression, and initiation of treatment are critical factors in decreasing morbidity (and potential mortality) in these cases. Michael L. Epter, DO, FAAEM and Alicia Pilarski, DO Introduction Beginning in 2004, poisonings rank second to motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., with …
Read More“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill Physician mentoring sounds like an easy enough proposition. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to opine and proselytize, in a position of power, to a new employee who is looking to impress his/her boss? Indeed, you can say most anything you want, with a very low risk of rebuttal or confrontation. Even well-intentioned mentors tend to …
Read MoreOn Imaging Head Injuries, Routine Cellulitis, Alteplase and Ischemic Stroke, Head Lice, Steroids for Pharyngitis, and Brain Injury in Children Nahum Kovalski, BSc, MDCM Each month, Dr. Nahum Kovalski reviews a handful of abstracts from, or relevant to, urgent care practices and practitioners. For the full reports, go to the source cited under each title. Diagnostic Imaging Rates for Head Injury in the ED and States’ Medical Malpractice Tort Reforms Key point: The authors found …
Read MoreIn each issue on this page, we report on research from or relevant to the emerging urgent care marketplace. This month, we relay data that track patient satisfaction with the emergency room based on time of day respondents arrived for treatment. Source: Pulse Report 2009: Emergency Department. Patient Perspective on American Health Care and Emergency Department Pulse Report 2007. Patient Perspectives on American Health Care. Press Ganey Associates, Inc. While these data do not …
Read MoreDAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Updates to the ICD-9 code set went into effect October 1, 2010. There will be one more regularly scheduled ICD-9 update on October 1, 201, the vastly larger ICD-10 code set is scheduled to take effect. The following are changes that are of particular interest to us in the urgent care field: New code to specify post-traumatic seizures: When a patient experiences seizure(s) as a result of a head injury, …
Read MoreIn sales, the term “cold call” may mean different things to different people. I define a cold call as an unannounced visit to a prospect company, whether the intention is to seek an unscheduled meeting or to drop off literature and/or gifts. I do not consider an initial telephone call a cold call, presuming it follows an introductory letter and/or email correspondence advising the prospect of the impending call.
Read MoreJohn Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP (Dr. Shufeldt began a three-part discussion of the importance of procedural checklists in the September issue of JUCM. That column is available at www.jucm.com.) I went to Mardi Gras two years ago. One of the events I attended was called the MOMs Ball. MOMs is an acronym for Mystic Orphans and Misfits; it’s a party by invite only, and only those with costumes and ticket are admitted. I was …
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