Clinical

Uncommonly high temperatures this summer have led increasing numbers of patients to seek care for heat-related conditions at hospitals and urgent care centers across the country. Even in Florida, where people are prepared for extreme heat, emergency room and urgent care operators say they’re seeing more patients with symptoms of heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and other conditions than in recent years. According to a report from WUSF Public Media in Orlando, urgent care centers in …

The midpoint of summer saw the steepest increase on COVID-19 since December 2022, leading some public health authorities and academics to wonder aloud whether we could see another tripledemic—simultaneous, high rates of COVID, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus—as winter approaches. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospitalizations for COVID-19 jumped 10.3% in the week ending July 15. Emergency room visits were also up for the week ending July 21. Given …

Not long ago, JUCM published an article (The X-Waiver Is No More: What This Means for Urgent Care) analyzing how removal of federal caps on prescribing buprenorphine—in effect, paving the way for any provider with a standard DEA controlled-medication license to prescribe—would impact the urgent care industry. On the heels of that, a new study published by JAMA Health Forum assessed the differences between providers who received Drug Addiction Treatment Act (DATA) waivers under the …

While a rise in leprosy cases in Florida is concerning enough, providers and public health officials there are especially alarmed because so many cases are occurring in patients with less-than-traditional risk factors and in patients born in the United States. According to a post by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both those factors “contribute to rising evidence that leprosy has become endemic in the southeastern United States.” Consequently, the CDC advises providers to …

The unmet need for community mental health resources—and the viability (or not) of urgent care as a setting that can provide them—continues to be a problem without a solution. Unfortunately, that problem runs much deeper than the headlines can convey. In addition to patients presenting in the throes of a mental health crisis, multiples more who are living with chronic conditions like dementia present with the same needs for immediate care as everyone else. An …

Just a few months ago we warned you about a TikTok trend in which individuals—often teenagers—took as many as a dozen diphenhydramine pills in the belief that they would start hallucinating as a friend shot video to be posted online. At least one boy died. The latest trend has not killed anyone to date, but it could be more likely to be followed because it purports to help treat troublesome symptoms with a substance attainable …

Patients, families, and providers who treat individuals who have Alzheimer’s disease were likely encouraged to learn that lecanemab-irmb (Leqembi) received full approve from the Food and Drug Administration because of its potential to slow progress of the disease. Any excitement was soon tempered by warnings that the drug’s side effects could be severe, however—so much so that some patients (such as those on blood thinners) may not be candidates to take it at all. Some …

Evidence is mounting that anchoring bias—getting “stuck” on patient-reported reasons for a visit to the extent that it affects decision-making or narrows the provider’s consideration of actual etiologies—is not only real but also a serious concern in clinical care. A study just published by JAMA Internal Medicine reveals that when patients presenting to an emergency room with shortness of breath included congestive heart failure on their self-reported history, physicians were less likely to assess for …

Consideration of possible causes of anemia in senior citizens would likely include significant illness such as chronic kidney disease, cancer, and ulcerative colitis along with much more benign concerns like vitamin B12 deficiency. Findings just reported online by the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest the explanation could be even simpler sometimes. Secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial (Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly, or ASPREE) including 19,114 subjects 65 years of …

Urgent care providers don’t necessarily have the benefit of a rich history with the patients they treat. So, it may be puzzling when a patient with too-high blood pressure lists an antihypertensive among their medications. Is it the wrong medication, the wrong prescription, is the patient just not “on it?” Data from the National Center for Health Statistics suggest there’s another possible explanation you should ask the patient about: cost. The NCHS says in 2021 …