Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Legal Restriction of Urgent Care Businesses by Municipalities

Urgent Message: As some municipalities have considered placing—or have already placed—restrictions on the opening of new urgent care centers in their communities, urgent care developers should understand the legality and business impact of such local moratoria. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor for The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Recently, after much consideration, the Manhattan Beach (CA) City Council rejected a …

How to Make Workplace Meetings More Productive

Urgent message: Despite most employees’ abhorrence to meetings, they indeed serve a valuable organizational purpose. The key is to keep them short, focused, free of distractions, and actionable. 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. The next time you find yourself bored and distracted in yet another meeting, take solace in the fact that you’re not …

Understanding the Ins and Outs of Triple Net Leases

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Urgent Message: As urgent care expands into traditional retail space, it’s important to understand the obligations of leases that require tenants to act as property “owners” responsible for all taxes, utilities, and maintenance of the real estate. While the defining characteristic of urgent care facilities across the country …

Why Urgent Care Needs More Controllers, Fewer Empathizers

Urgent message: The rise of self-service technologies means that when patients actually do need to interact with frontline staff to resolve a service issue, their more complicated issues, more stringent demands, and higher expectations require an opinionated and outspoken “controller” personality type to take control of the situation. As urgent care relies on positive of word-of-mouth to drive new and repeat visits, a center not only must deliver an exceptional patient experience, but also resolve …

Cultivating Change in the Workplace

Urgent message: The strength of an urgent care operation ultimately lies in its people; for any change initiative to be successful, your center’s staff has to be prepared and willing to embrace change. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor for The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. In the workplace, as in life, the only real constant is change. And nowhere is …

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 …

Walk-In Primary Care: What Does It Mean for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: As many primary care providers expand their hours and offer walk-in service, the lines between urgent care and primary care become blurred. To remain competitive, urgent care operators will need to more clearly define their value to patient and payers, increase the acuity of services offered to reduce duplication, and become more innovative in their service delivery and partnerships. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc Introduction For years, many primary care physicians (PCPs) have …

New Urgent Care Models Help Cancer Patients

Urgent message: As the population ages, the healthcare system will be faced with a growing number of cancer patients who have unique care needs. Since typical hospital EDs are rarely equipped to capably and cost-effectively service cancer patients who present with timely medical issues, there remains a growing need for additional cancer-focused urgent care resources—an opportunity that urgent care operators and health systems would do well to capitalize on. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is …

Do You Understand the Three Different Reimbursement Methods for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: Payment models seem to evolve as quickly as the urgent care markets itself. Keeping up to speed is essential for continued growth in revenue—if not survival. Here, we weigh the relative merits of some of the most common reimbursement models. The way urgent care providers deliver healthcare continues to evolve, and with it the ways in which providers collect reimbursement for their services. To keep an urgent care practice financially healthy, it’s vital …

The Innovative Power of Criticism

The following summary of an article that appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of Harvard Business Review examines how the skillful application of the art of criticism can be more powerful than traditional ideation methods in taking products, services, and business models in new, profitable directions. As technology continues to rapidly transform healthcare, urgent care providers must familiarize themselves with methodologies they can employ in developing new value propositions towards growing their businesses. Powerful ideation …