StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Do ‘Small-Scale’ Mergers Add Up to Medical Monopolies?

The ongoing growth of the urgent care industry despite naysayers and a challenging payer landscape speaks to the commitment of individual physician owners who recognized the benefit of a different approach to practicing medicine—for themselves and for the patient. As we’ve mentioned here, one recent trend has seen hospital systems gobbling up individually owned urgent care operations. While the government keeps fairly close watch on mega mergers—sometimes blocking them in the interest of protecting an …

More Urgent Care Centers Step Up for Hurricane Harvey Relief

Just days ago, we told you about an urgent care center in Texas opening its doors as a collection center for area residents to drop off relief supplies for victims of Hurricane Harvey. The even-better news is that more urgent care centers around the country continue to extend themselves to help. FastMed announced three of its Houston-area centers are offering free tetanus boosters through Sunday, September 10. The shots are available to anyone 18 and …

Washington Suit Alleges Obstacles to ‘Charity Care’ by Hospital

Washington’s attorney general has filed suit against St. Joseph Medical Center, charging that the hospital has illegally withheld “charity care” from tens of thousands of low-income Tacoma-area residents for years. Specifically, AG Bob Ferguson says St. Joseph has erected “obstacles” that inhibit providing care to patients who may have trouble affording it. State laws in Washington require hospitals to verify the income of prospective charity patients, but allegedly St. Joseph staff were directed to ask …

More Data Quantify ED Visits That Could Be Avoided

Nonbiased parties outside of the urgent care arena are picking up on the idea that many people who visit the emergency room don’t really need to be there—and there are more data demonstrating that all the time. Most recently, the International Journal for Quality in Health Care published research stating that 3.3% of ED visits are “avoidable” altogether. The data reflect more than 424 million ED visits by patients between 18 and 64 years of …

The Life Cycle of Urgent Care Acquisitions

Urgent message: Urgent care’s success in delivering a retail healthcare experience has attracted the attention of private equity and hospital investors; understanding the deal timeline is an essential first step for an urgent care operator interested in buying or selling a business. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Introduction Urgent care centers are popular among …

Attention Operators: You Won't Have to Report Pay by Gender, Race After All

When President Trump took office, he vowed to take steps to make life easier for business operators. The White House just announced one step in that direction would be reversing an Obama administration decision to make employers, including urgent care operators, report how much they paid workers and break down the data by gender, race, and ethnicity. Obama believed doing so would help quantify (and ultimately curb) pay discrimination, while Trump maintains that the process …

Are You Maximizing Claims on Radiology, Pathology, and E/M Services?

Date-of-services rules can be cumbersome on a good day—and can even turn an otherwise good day into a major headache for coders. A Medicare administrator contractor (MAC) put forth a provider outreach and education (POE) recommendation recently aimed at leveling out that “uphill battle” when it comes to complying with date-of-service requirements. An article in published online by DecisionHealth recommends clarifying the specific date-of-service rules your urgent care center follows when reporting common radiology, pathology, …

Your Antibiotic Stewardship Efforts Are Paying Off

A new study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association indicates that efforts to curb inappropriate antibiotics prescribing are working. The project considered 173 million claims reflecting the care of subscribers <65 years of age who filled antibiotic prescriptions between 2010 and 2016, finding that prescriptions for antibiotics fell 22% for infants, 16% for children, and 6% for adults during that time frame. Patients in the South and Appalachia were more likely to fill prescriptions …

Intermountain Quantifies Goal to Cut Opioid Prescriptions

The need to reduce access to opioid pain medications is pretty well accepted at this point, though much of the outcry is vague and often geared toward echoing statistics about the very real epidemic of addiction and death. However, Intermountain Health, which operates InstaCare urgent care centers in Utah and Idaho, has gone a step further by crunching its own numbers and devising a plan to cut opioid prescriptions across its systems by 40% by …

Urgent Care Data Would Feed NJ ‘Master Person Index’ to Help Prevent Mistaken Identity

Lax record keeping, the transient nature of online identities, and continually changing mobile phone numbers make it hard enough to keep tab on “who’s who” in your patient records. Add common names to the mix and it’s easy to see how patient identity could be hard to keep straight—the consequences of which could be severe in terms of patient safety and your adherence to confidentiality laws. New Jersey thinks one solution would be Master Person …