Industry

The Utah Department of Health specifically called out greater utilization of urgent care as a key factor in reducing emergency room visits across the state—along with a corresponding decrease in associated costs, of course. While the report did not put a dollar amount on the savings, it does note that an average trip to the ED in the state costs five-and-a-half times more than an urgent care visit. Since the state DoH reports that around …

Amazon is investing more resources into Amazon Care, its in-house primary care program in Seattle. The company announced it’s buying Health Navigator, which provides technology and other services to digital health companies. While the financial details of the deal are undisclosed, last year Amazon plunked down $753 million to buy the online pharmacy company PillPack. The message is that they’re betting heavily that they can realize substantial cost savings by facilitating primary care for employees …

Much has been written and said about the preferences of patients in the Millennial generation (defined by Pew Research as anyone born between 1981 and 1996). And rightly so; they’re a sizable portion of your prospective patient population. What may be overlooked, however, is the fact that this same age segment also makes up a sizable portion of your prospective workforce, including physicians. In fact, according to a blog post on the UCA website, authored …

Texas has taken some hard knocks for the proliferation of freestanding emergency rooms there—especially in light of criticism of that industry for surprise billing. It seems too many patients walk into a freestanding ED thinking it’s an urgent care center, only to be socked with emergency room-like charges weeks or months later. The upside (for urgent care, anyway) is that the controversies prompted the Texas Association of Health Plans to do a study of cost …

Last year, urgent care was among the fields to be called out for too often prescribing antibiotics when none was warranted. The data were somewhat misleading, given that urgent care is also a setting to which many antibiotic-seeking patients turn. Nonetheless, the industry collectively took stock of itself and vowed to improve; and the fruits of that labor are already evident, and the world is noticing. The Urgent Care Association, for one, created an Antibiotic …

A recent post on the Forbes website noted that 64% of gig workers (or contractors, full-time freelancers, independent workers…pick your favorite term) have no paid sick time. Considering that they make up around one-third of the U.S. workforce these days, that’s a lot of people stressed about staying well or getting well quickly if they do get sick. Their economic survival (and physical health, obviously) depends on it. The Urgent Care Association just forged a …

A North Carolina hospital system is installing metal detectors, limiting elevator access in specific areas within its facility, and hiring armed guards to keep watch in its emergency rooms in the wake of incidents ranging from an armed patient roaming the halls to a distraught mother barricading herself and her son (a patient) in a hospital room. While it’s laudable that they’re doing what they feel is necessary to keep patients and staff safe, such …

It’s safe to say no one reading this would disagree that urgent care centers fulfill an essential role in the U.S. healthcare landscape of 2019. It follows that fair compensation for care provided at an urgent care center should be a given. As you undoubtedly know, that’s not necessarily the case, however, and the Urgent Care Association is trying to make sure the parties with the authority to change that inequity get the message. UCA …

Fast growth and the deepening physician shortage are quickening the pace at which urgent care operators need to fill clinical spots. The challenge is not simply finding the right personnel, though. Just as an urgent care facility must be credentialled, so must individual providers. That can take up to 120 days—which can have serious implications when it comes to billing patients. Say a patient whose insurance has you squarely in-network is seen by a physician …

A new report from UnitedHealth Group reveals that around two-thirds of the 27 million annual visits to U.S. emergency rooms are unnecessary. Those 18 million encounters carry an average cost of $2,032 each, adding up to a $36 billion price tag for care that could be provided more easily and just as safely elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. The same brief notes the average cost of a trip to an urgent care center …