David Stern, MD Q.I read your column about new vs. established patient coding in the January Issue of JUCM. Although the information provided was correct at one time, I believe that Medicare has updated its algorithm to come closer to the algorithm provided by AMA for new vs, established patients. A.You are correct. In a somewhat obscure and rarely referenced information release. (www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/MM4032.pdf) CMS did change its position on this issue. “Physicians should not that …
Read MoreAdjust Your Strategy for a Down Economy
There is a broad consensus that our country’s current recession will advance to become the harshest economic crisis we have faced since the Great Depression. On the surface, spiraling unemployment and broad-based financial pressures portend trouble for most urgent care clinics. Yet, crisis inevitably breeds opportunity if clinic owners avoid being caught like a deer in the headlights and proactively move forward. This month’s column addresses economic realities and what clinics can do now—not just …
Read MoreHow to Say ‘Farewell and Adieu’ to Owning Your Business
John Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP How do you know when it’s time to cut bait? Remember the scene in Jaws when Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is throwing fish guts into the ocean and comes face to face with the shark? He remarks, somewhat casually. “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” Despite the fact that everyone in the theater is yelling “run for your life,” the trio then decides to continue after the …
Read MoreClinical Challenge: February, 2009
10-year-old boy sustains direct blow to elbow
The patient is a 10-year-old boy who experienced a direct blow to the elbow approximately six hours prior to presentation.He had incomplete range of motion with minimal local swelling and considerable pain. View the image and consider what your next steps would be.
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26-year-old woman with bleeding lesion
A 26-year-old woman presents to the urgent care center with a bleeding lesion on her finger. The lesion developed in less than a week and was associated with no other symptoms. The patient is on no medications and is otherwise healthy. She reports no prior history of skin disease. View the photo taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be.
Read MoreThe Search for the Urgent Care Center
Urgent message: Efforts to define and accurately count urgent care centers in the U.S.—which may be crucial to the industry’s continued growth—are ongoing, and will require the commitment of trade organizations and individual urgent care owners alike. Our quest to provide accurate, scientifically rigorous benchmarking data for urgent care centers began with the decision to conduct a survey. Before you can administer a survey, though, you need to be able to identify the individuals or organizations …
Read MoreMaking a Case for Hospital Urgent Care
Urgent message: Availability of hospital-affiliated urgent care can not only lower the burden on overcrowded EDs, but also help capture new business and keep existing patients within the health system. Hospitals have operated urgent care centers for over 25 years; today, estimates of how many centers are affiliated with hospitals range from 15% to 20%. In recent years, hospitals grappling with overcrowded emergency rooms and increased competition for outpatient visits have rediscovered urgent care as …
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January 2009
Developing Data: January, 2009
In early 2008, UCA revamped its annual survey in conjunction with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University with the goal of assuring that the UCA Benchmarking Committee’s efforts produced a scientifically valid report. Over the coming months in Developing Data, JUCM will present some of the findings from this landmark survey, to which 436 urgent care centers responded. In this issue: Of those urgent care centers that responded to questions about how they …
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