Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care Operator’s Liability for a Car Crash into the Center

Urgent Message: The owners and operators of urgent care centers are liable only for “foreseeable” events, which generally excludes a car crashing into an urgent care center and other “freak” accidents. Perhaps it’s the last story on a newscast, or in the strange-but-true section of the newspaper or a website: a vehicle crashes into an urgent care center. As strange as this news may seem, it’s not entirely uncommon. In the past decade, there have …

Calculating the Value of a Like: The Muddled ROI of Facebook Advertising

Urgent message: Ideally, paid advertising should show a return on investment based on the revenue it generates. However, revenue-based metrics are difficult to prove using social media, in which “likes” are more valuable in identifying fully engaged patients than generating direct sales. When it comes to social media marketing channels, Facebook remains atop the throne. The fact that 80% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Facebook page more than supports that assertion, and stands …

Strategies for Managing Employee Burnout

Urgent message: Statistics indicate there is an epidemic of mental, physical, and emotional burnout of employees in the United States, painting a troubling picture that urgent care operators must proactively manage in order to assure continued patient satisfaction. Many of us have been there: getting out of bed in the morning feels like a monumental task. The thought of another work day evokes an exasperated sigh. Previously productive shifts give way to distracted clock-watching. Patience …

Dispelling Physician Myths About the Patient Experience

Urgent Message: As “influencers in chief” charged with assuring the types of patient experiences that create patient loyalty and word-of-mouth, urgent care providers must understand the relationship between patient experience metrics, financial and clinical outcomes, care team coordination, and time spent with the patient. As value-based reimbursement becomes more prevalent in healthcare, providers are increasingly tasked with not only ensuring a great clinical outcome, but a superior patient experience, as well. Industry research supports this …

Recognizing and Preventing Provider Burnout in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Urgent care demands that providers meet goals for fast patient turnaround and positive patient experiences, which when combined with tight staffing makes recognizing and preventing provider burnout a priority for urgent care providers. It’s been said that providers are the lifeblood of any healthcare organization. Indeed, they’re the collective engines that make everything go, such that their focused engagement and dedicated patient care are critical for organizational success. But that dedication often leaves …

Should Your Urgent Care Center Offer HIV Testing?

Urgent Message: To enable early detection and treatment to help curb future transmissions, CDC guidelines recommend HIV testing be available for patients in all healthcare settings, including urgent care centers. HIV testing can be a practical, profitable, public health service for urgent care centers. Many patients, especially millennials, rely on urgent care as their “provider of first choice.” These are patients who are generally healthy and have no chronic conditions requiring long-term management, but who …

Better Safe than Sorry: The Six Rs of Safe Injections

Urgent Message: While giving injections in urgent care may seem like a rote task, the significant safety risks of errors require that providers and staff pay special attention to the “Six Rs” when giving each and every injection. Unlike other service industries, when you ask people why they go into healthcare, the answer is typically “to help people.” Given your genuine and innate drive to improve the health and wellbeing of your patients, how awful …

How to Hire Your Next Urgent Care Manager

Urgent message: Urgent care centers need engaged and effective operations leadership, which entails clearly defining managerial roles, individual skillsets and personality characteristics and also having a process for attracting, interviewing, and qualifying managerial candidates. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Experity and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Jim Clifton, the highly respected CEO of global performance and research leader Gallup, has often stated …

When to Fight a Claim for Unemployment

Urgent message: While unemployment insurance claims can cost an urgent care center through higher future premiums, there are multiple considerations for when a center should contest or approve an unemployment claim. Urgent care centers, as service businesses, frequently experience a high rate of turnover among their less skilled, frontline staff—eg, receptionists, clerks, and medical assistants. Whether an employee quits or is terminated for cause or performance, a common issue for urgent care center owners is …

Can Your Employees Really Speak Freely?

The following is a summary of an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review. It explores how, in many organizations, leaders who attempt to elicit honest employee feedback often fail in their attempts to create meaningful dialogue. Urgent care providers must realize they have an important stake in this issue, as research shows when employees can voice their concerns freely, organizations see increased retention and stronger performance. Most leaders will declare that they have …