Practice Management
GoNow Doctors is making good on its vow to keep growing in the urgent care sector, having just purchased Medac Health Services in the Wilmington, NC area. The four clinics, including one that offers occupational medicine services, will continue to operate under the Medac name. With the completion of the Medac acquisition, GoNow Doctors now has its hands on 13 urgent and primary care centers in the eastern part of the country. At the same …
Read MoreU.S. HealthWorks is on a Rocky Mountain high after buying Colorado-based Arbor Occupational Medicine. Bringing Arbor’s four locations into the fold means U.S. Healthworks will now have 231 locations in 21 states; these are the first in Colorado, however. Arbor was founded in Boulder in 1992 with a focus on occupational medicine and physical therapy and a mission to reduce return-to-work time. All told, U.S. HealthWorks collectively has roughly 800 providers who administer care for …
Read More
Just weeks after its partner company GoHealth announced plans to break into the San Francisco-area market, Legacy Health is spreading its own wings closer to its home. The company opens its 12th location in the Portland, OR area this week under the Legacy-GoHealth Urgent Care name. If all goes according to plan, the company will keep growing and operate 20 urgent care centers in the Portland area by the end of 2016.
Read More
GoHealth Urgent Care is broadening its horizons by partnering with Dignity Health to open 12 urgent care centers in the San Francisco Bay area within the next 12 to 15 months. The venture will be owned equally by the two companies, but Dignity physicians will staff the new facilities. Each center will have basic lab and x-ray capabilities. Presently, GoHealth’s operations are limited to the New York and Portland, OR metropolitan areas. Dignity Health is …
Read More
A breakdown of consumer spending from the Bureau of Labor Statistics supports the notion that the high cost of healthcare encourages patients to seek care in less traditional settings like urgent care. Data for 2012–2014, the most current available, show that 19 percent of total healthcare spending is out of pocket—and that figures is still on the rise. With an increase of 20.6%, increases in total spending for healthcare far outpaced income before taxes (up …
Read More
Healthcare corporations continue to deepen their urgent care portfolios through acquisition—and they’re seeing dividends while also planning to continue buying up properties. HCA Holdings welcomed more than a million patients into its ever-expanding urgent care units within the last year—an increase of 500%, according to the company. Having made a number of acquisitions in the urgent care marketplace, as we’ve told you, HCA now has 66 centers in the U.S. The hospital giant has reported …
Read More
UnitedHealth’s OptumCare division already runs over 160 urgent care centers in 14 states by virtue of having bought MedExpress, but it plans to have “several multiples of that number five years from now.” That’s what Optum CEO and UnitedHealth Group vice chair Larry Renfro told a group of analysts recently, citing provider revenues as a key growth factor for the company. Already the largest payer in the U.S., UnitedHealth joins HCA Holdings and Tenet Healthcare …
Read More
A new Harris Poll found that 88% of patients are “satisfied” with their last visit to the doctor, with 53% saying they are “very satisfied.” Digging deeper, though, you find data that can make or break that perception. A provider’s knowledge, training, and expertise were the most important attributes, but more than half of respondents also said the doctor’s ability to access their medical history, time spent with the doctor, and good communication matter significantly. …
Read More
Cepheid has inked a deal with Henry Schein Medical to distribute its GeneXpert System and menu of Xpert tests for healthcare-associated infections, critical infectious disease, and sexual health in more than 10,000 laboratory customers in the United States—urgent care centers among them. Previously, the GeneXpert System could be found mainly in hospital laboratories. Subject to FDA review of the GeneXpert Omni System and associated tests, Henry Schein will also distribute Cepheid’s CLIA-waived products for the …
Read More
Optum has followed up its acquisition of urgent care provider MedExpress by buying a chunk of ProHealth Physicians, an independent physician group based in Connecticut. Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, has been on a healthcare shopping spree over the past two years. The latest deal gives Optum control over ProHealth’s administration and other backend operations. The primary-care medical group will continue to be physician-owned, however. ProHealth has stated its plans to move toward risk-based …
Read More