Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

UCA Takes to Capitol Hill

A contingent from the Urgent Care Association (UCA) descended on Congressional offices to school lawmakers and their staffs on the important role urgent care plays in the healthcare continuum. Coinciding with the UCA Urgent Care Convention & Expo at nearby National Harbor, the visit put 15 UCA representatives face-to-face with 75 congressional staffers, including those who work on committees with jurisdiction over Medicaid and veteran’s healthcare. In addition to giving lawmakers a better idea of …

Physician Ownership is No Longer the Norm Across Practice Types

There are more physician-employees than physician-owners across the practice landscape, according to new data from the American Medical Association—the first time under 50% of patient care physicians have an ownership stake in their medical practice since the AMA started keeping track. While the data do not reflect urgent care specifically (including this market as “other”), they do show the share of physicians with ownership stake in a medical practice fell to 47% in 2016. That’s …

Landlords Should Rejoice as Urgent Care Continues to Fill Local Retail Spaces

It’s tough out there for retailers—which means it’s at least as tough for the building managers and owners that do business with them. While urgent care centers used to be considered a “bad fit” (along with all medical facilities), they’re now becoming the darlings of retail space developers. National UC Realty puts the number of active urgent care locations at 9,600 and climbing, making the industry a presence that cannot be ignored on the real …

It’s Been a Tough Spring for Direct Primary Care

Direct primary care—in which practices bill patients recurring fees (often monthly) that cover many services without additional charges—is faltering, with the closure of two pioneers of the model recently. Qliance Medical Management and Turntable Health have both decided to close up shop, citing difficulties in securing funding to update services (eg, by offering a more urgent care-like level of care) and invest in technologies that would facilitate virtual care. Nonetheless, direct primary care continues to …

Providers Not Likely to Face Legal Problems from eClinicalWorks settlement

Some urgent care providers have expressed concern that they could be the next subjects of Department of Justice scrutiny in the wake of eClinicalWorks agreement to settle federal charges. Those fears stem from the idea that incentive payments they received from eClinicalWorks could be viewed as ill-gotten gains. (As we told you just days ago, the company had been sued over charges it falsely certified that its EHR met all government criteria and that it …

eClinicalWorks Settlement Will Take the Sting Out of Switching to New EHR Systems

Electronic health record vendor eClinicalWorks’ has been fined $155 million for violating the False Claims Act. The company’s misfortune could be the urgent care industry’s (and patients’) gain, however, by making it easier for healthcare providers to switch from one EHR system to another. eClinicalWorks was sued over claims that it falsely certified that its EHR met all government criteria and that it failed to adequately test its software before release; to adequately debug systems …

Healthcare Systems Shifting Capital Away from Hospitals to Ambulatory Care, Telemedicine

Tenet Healthcare Corp. is reducing capital spending for hospitals by $150 million in its 2017 budget in order to add urgent care centers in key markets, and to open freestanding emergency departments and microhospitals over the next 18–24 months. The idea is to shore up the facilities’ ability to meet growing volume in those settings. Kaiser Permanente is also building up its spending on emerging practice trends; in recognition of the fact that more than …

The Top Six Reasons Patients Seek Emergency and Urgent Care

The increased wait times in emergency rooms and explosion in the popularity of urgent care have been (and continue to be) well documented. Not as much attention has been paid to why there’s so much more traffic. A study soon to be published in Academic Emergency Medicine reveals a few of the answers—and some of them support the notion that urgent care fulfills unique needs, either clinically or in terms of patient preference: Limited access …

ED Wait Times Shorten After Telemedicine is Added

The emergency room at the Washington (DC) Hospital Center had a statistically validated reputation for long waits—more than 115 minutes, on average. They’ve managed to lop an hour off that, though, thanks to a new telemedicine system that’s helped reduce clutter and time waiting to be seen. Employing a system called Teletriage, by EmOpti, the MedStar-owned facility now uses video to allow providers to see a patient remotely during the triage process. Triage nurses start …

Report: Hospitals, Broader Offerings, Demographics Fuel Urgent Care Industry Growth

The ever-increasing investment hospitals are making in their own urgent care offerings, along with the growing senior population and evolving habits of younger patients, are key factors in the ongoing growth of the urgent care industry, according to a new report by TMR Research. Urgent Care Centers Market—Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Growth, and Forecast 2017–2025 also credits the pioneering operators who brought the industry to this point, however, noting that the services …