Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Arrest Serves as a Reminder: Consider Running Candidates Through the Sex Offender Registry

A New Mexico physician assistant was arrested recently on charges he sexually abused a child repeatedly—years after being granted probation after being charged with enticement of a minor in Utah. He was denied a license in Utah for that reason in 2009, but was granted a PA license in New Mexico less than a year later. PAs are certified nationally, but licensed at the state level. JUCM published an original article on this very topic …

Overloaded Hospitals Ask Floridians to Go to Urgent Care with Nonemergent Needs

Hospitals in parts of Florida that were hit hard by Hurricane Irma are open for business and fully staffed, but they’ve got so many patients coming in with hurricane-related injuries and illness that the EDs are overflowing. Some of them have put out the word that urgent care would be a better place to go right now for nonemergent complaints, pointing out that they will be treated more quickly while also easing the burden at …

Follow-Up: Urgent Care Continues to Support Hurricane Efforts Across the Country

Now that the U.S. has been battered by two hurricanes in quick succession from Texas to the Southeast, the urgent care community seems to have doubled its efforts to provide relief to those affected. In addition to efforts aimed at helping victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, East Coast urgent care operators are doing what they can for those caught in the path of Hurricane Irma. Florida Hospital announced it’s offering free video visits “until …

Colorado Hospital Sees Higher Pot-Related Visits Since Legalization

The number of marijuana-related visits to the emergency room and urgent care center at Children’s Hospital Colorado has more than quadrupled since Colorado legalized recreational use, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus reviewed ED and urgent care records for 13- to 21-year-olds, looking for visits where the patient either had a diagnostic code related to marijuana use or a positive urine screen; that number rose from 146 …

Measles Cases Skyrocket; Are Anti-Immigration, Antivaccine Activists to Blame?

Minnesota has seen a huge uptick in measles cases lately, coinciding statistically with a drop in immunization rates in the state. In addition to the antivaccine movement going on all over the country, Minnesota has a subgroup of activists who are also anti-immigration that has tried to convince Somali immigrants that vaccines are dangerous as a way to dissuade more Somalis from moving in. The first measles cases cropped up a month ago, and public …

Go to the ED for a Sore Throat? Fuhgeddaboudit, Urges NY Politician

Brooklyn (NY) Borough President Eric Adams has a message for basketball fans, concert goers, and cinephiles in his native environs: Stay out of the emergency room unless you absolutely have to be there; the urgent care center is often a much better, faster, and less costly option. Adams is so keen on that message that he recorded a series of public service announcements that play in the Barclays Center arena and high-end movie theaters in …

New CMS Rule Hands Telemedicine Oversight to States

A new ruling from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) standardizes the responsibility of state Medicaid agencies when it comes to telemedicine, aiming to ensure that “proper access to particular healthcare services can be ensured.” Those assessments would include the needs of patients, as well as time, distance and access afforded by telemedicine. Each state will be responsibility for policing itself by evaluating performance of those services every three years. Once the rule …

Dark Days for the Affordable Care Act

The United States Senate is the latest—and certainly the most prestigious—body to recommend pulling the plug on the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare). The Senate followed the lead of the House of Representatives by passing a new bill on December 3 that essentially repeals ACA. Passage of the new bill may be a moot point, as President Obama is likely to veto it. Once heralded by proponents as the salvation of uninsured …