StuWilli, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Editorialist: Freestanding ERs May Be Hurting Patients

Well-informed media pundits are catching on to what urgent care insiders—among others—have been saying for some time now: freestanding emergency rooms may be able to provide necessary treatment in most situations, but overall are not contributing to efficient, appropriate patient care. One newspaper editorialist in Texas puts the question in very simple terms: “Are they good for patients?” Writing in the Dallas Morning News , Brett Berrett lays out his rationale for answering his own …

Offering Urgent Care ‘Subscriptions’ May Boost Patient Engagement

We’ve mentioned here that healthcare costs and physician shortages could amount to an opportunity for creative urgent care businesses. Valley Immediate Care in Oregon is the latest operator to adopt an increasingly popular strategy to take advantage of that opportunity: low-cost “subscription” healthcare services, in this case marketed under the name My Urgent Care 365. Individual subscriptions cost $40 a month and entitle the subscriber to three visits annually, with a $25 urgent care fee. …

Workplace Cell Phone Policies Should Be Reasonable—but Firm

In today’s “connected” world, few of us can go hours without checking our email, text messages, and social media posts. The same is true for urgent care center providers and staff. However, when patients see employees chatting or texting on their cell phones, they can get the impression that the focus is on the employee’s personal concerns and not patient care. For an employer, this behavior represents lost on the clock productivity, with the opportunity …

HIPAA Turns 20—Is it Time for it to Move Out?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—better (if not more affectionately) known as HIPAA—was signed into effect in 1996, around the time that the World Wide Web was viewed as the wild frontier. In 2016, the internet is now The Establishment, every citizen of the United States has access to health insurance, and electronic data drive everything from who’s “trending” on Instagram to local, regional, and national expectations of the coming flu season. Even firewalls …

Rural Areas Suffer Most When Insurers Drop Out of Public Exchanges

A new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the dwindling number of insurers participating in public exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) is much harder on people in rural communities than on city dwellers. Larger urban areas are more likely to have at least two insurers to choose from, giving those payers an incentive to offer lower rates. However, insurers often have a monopoly by default …

Growing Urgent Care Outfit Is a Hot Property

Fast Pace Urgent Care has grown fivefold since 2012, making it a valuable asset to its parent company, Shore Capital Partners—and an attractive prospect for Revelstoke Capital Partners, which just bought all 36 of the clinics. Fast Pace had just seven clinics in 2012; most of its growth in the Shore Capital Partners era has been through new construction (it also bought three existing locations along the way). Five more clinics are scheduled to open …

Making Urgent Care Child-Friendly Can ‘Bear’ New Patients—and Profits

News flash: Some kids don’t like to go to the doctor. Which means parents sometimes have to decide between dragging an unwilling child into your clinic and weighing whether their child’s symptoms really do merit immediate attention. Neither outcome is optimal. An urgent care clinic in Bellmore, NY has hit on an inspired way to make the doctor’s office a little less intimidating, though. Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care recently invited families to bring their child …

September 2016

2016 Urgent Care Buyer's Guide

Number of Urgent Care Clinics by State (as of July 2016)

In July 2016, the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine (JUCM) concluded a count of unique urgent care centers across its print and digital subscription base. Estimates of urgent care centers can vary depending on whom you ask, because many different definitions are used to determine what constitutes an urgent care center. JUCM and the Urgent Care Association of America define urgent care centers as having all of the following characteristics: Walk-in or unscheduled care Expanded …