Practice Management
Hospital ownership of physician practices—including urgent care centers—has jumped a whopping 86% in just 4 years, according to new data from the Physicians Advocacy Institute. That means one out of every four practices is now owned by a hospital, overall. For hospitals, owning practices not physically connected to their facility allows them to keep patients “in the family” even when they’re not on campus, which also allows them to keep fees in-house as well of …
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The fourth quarter of 2016 looks to be an especially busy one for healthcare acquisitions—with urgent care concerns being particularly hot report, according to a from Bloomberg’s Bureau of National Affairs (BNA). There are a large number of deals being hammered out currently, and both buyers and sellers are eager to close them before they close the annual books. Long-term care, health information technology, and physician practice all figure to lead the charge, with urgent …
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Urgent care providers who offer occupational medicine services may be able to lower their payrolls while increasing revenue though new business, if a new report from the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health is any indication. The panel convened to examine what steps federal workplace safety agencies can take to encourage more students (or even people looking for a career change) to go into workplace health and safety. It concluded that more employers …
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More and more communities—big and small, urban and suburban—are seeing their choices for immediate medical care multiply at a rapid pace, thanks largely to the continued growth of urgent care centers. While that level of competition helps ensure that all the players in the market bring their A game to every encounter, the sheer number of options bolsters one of the key benefits that brings patients to urgent care in the first place: when there …
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A 56-year-old woman with a past medical history of hypertension presents to an urgent care center 1 hour after she injured her ankle while stepping off a curb. She believes that the ankle “twisted inward” but is not sure. She reports sharp, severe, constant pain throughout the joint and that worsens when she attempts to move the ankle through the range of motion. There is no numbness of the foot or ankle, no pain at …
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A 62-year-old woman presents to an urgent care center with severe left hip pain that began several hours earlier after a motor vehicle accident. She was the driver, and she was wearing a seat belt. Her car’s driver-side air bag deployed when her car, moving at about 35 miles per hour, rear-ended a stopped car. She refused to be transported from the accident scene by emergency medical services for treatment because her only issue was …
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The Urgent Care Association (UCA) has officially filed comments with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), supporting a proposal to modify the “24/7” access requirements for providers who plan to bill Medicare for Chronic Care Management (CCM) codes. According to UCA, the new language will allow primary care providers “to more easily meet the CCM billing requirements if they contract with urgent care centers for their patient’s acute care needs, including evenings and …
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The growth of retail clinics across the country may have chain drugstore operators patting themselves on the back, but it has some residents in local communities saying “There goes the neighborhood.” One thing that concerns people in some San Francisco neighborhoods, for example, is that crafty operators are exploiting loopholes in local regulations to transition some spaces from retail to medical use. Residents are most concerned about additional traffic and unwelcome changes in the character …
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The path to ongoing growth in the urgent care industry is paved with the dollars it saves payers and patients, according to MedExpress Chief Medical Officer Thomas Pangburn, MD. While insurers would likely disagree, Pangburn says that includes the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”). Here’s some of the rationale he shared with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review : “With the Affordable Care Act and changes in the healthcare system, more and more …
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Medicaid patients in Missouri will have to fork over an $8 copay before receiving care in the emergency room, thanks to a new bill that aims to reduce overusage in the ED. The bill allows for free visits to urgent care centers, however. Senate Bill 608 also gives physician offices the right to assess Medicaid patients a $5 penalty if they make a habit of missing appointments without 24-hours’ notice; miss an appointment once and …
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