Practice Management
The patient is a 73-year-old woman who presents with a foreign body (a piece of wood, specifically) sticking out of a scratch on her hand. She reports that she fell in her yard. On examination, you discover that she also has local pain and swelling of the left wrist. View the x-ray taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be.
Read MoreBy Julie Wright, MBA, CMPE Introduction The steady growth of new urgent care centers (UCC) has garnered publicity and caught the eyes of entrepreneurial thinkers across the country. As medical groups have become more responsive to patient needs, and as patients have become independent, urgent care centers have found their niche in the market. UCCs are an important addition to our healthcare system and have been growing in popularity for both patient and practitioner for …
Read More
Urgent message: Rashes often lead patients to seek relief in the urgent care center. The ability to differentiate among common, superficial fungal infections and to select the most appropriate treatment or refer is an important skill to master. Kosta G. Skandamis, MD and George Skandamis, MD Introduction Superficial fungal infections are among the most common skin conditions seen in the urgent care setting. Dermatophytes are the most common type of fungi that infect and survive …
Read MoreQ. “I’m a physician. I’ve paid my dues. Isn’t it enough to provide good care for my patients?” Q. “I’m an owner. I have a business to run, decisions to make, money to stake. Don’t I call the shots here?” Q. “I’m a manager, I have spreadsheets to analyze, schedules to make, sick calls … with all responsibilities, how can I be expected to find time to be a leader?” Q. “I’m a front desk …
Read MoreClinical Predictors of Pneumonia Among Children with Wheezing Key point: The routine use of chest radiography for children with wheezing but without fever should be discouraged. Citation: Mathews B, Shah S, Cleveland RH, et al. Clinical predictors of pneumonia among children with wheezing. Pediatrics. 2009; 124(1): e29-e36. A prospective cohort study was performed with children < 21 year of age who were evaluated in the ED, were found to have wheezing on examination, and had …
Read MoreJohn Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP I am always amazed by the myriad of personalities encountered on any given day in the urgent care center or emergency room, at the office, or even when simply out and about. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to learn a few things from the thousands of patients I’ve treated and the remarkable individuals I’ve met along the way. How is it that some people with serious acute or …
Read MoreIn each issue on this page, we report on research from or relevant to the emerging urgent care marketplace. And few things are more relevant to urgent care’s role in the greater healthcare marketplace than wait times in various settings. This may be especially true to the emergency department, as one of the more often heard take-home messages in urgent care promotion is shorter wait times versus a trip to the Ed. This begs the …
Read More
Urgent message: Back pain in a pediatric patient requires a high index of suspicion. Ominous causes (e.g. cancer, infection), are far more common in the pediatric population. Conversely, mechanical low back pain is far less common, and is a diagnosis of exclusion. Forrest Nguyen, DO Introduction As urgent care physicians, we are responsible for anything that comes through the door. Often, the diagnosis proves to be routine – a viral infection, a sore throat, or …
Read MoreQ. At the UCA Fall Urgent Care conference, you welcomed all questions, so here goes: Can you please let me know if it is appropriate to charge for Ortho-Glass and fiberglass splints in the urgent care setting? In some cases, the splints are applied by a tech under the direct supervision of the physician. In other cases, can the charge for the application of the splint be coded in addition to the Q code? Question …
Read More