Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

‘Anti-Maskers’ May Be Getting Aggressive with You or Your Staff. Are You Prepared?

With the Delta variant continuing to increase the number of COVID-19 diagnoses and hospitalizations across the U.S., many states and cities are returning to the mask mandates that proved so controversial—and rage-inducing—earlier in the pandemic. While the problem hasn’t made headlines here yet, a report released by the British Medical Association reveals that physicians in Northern Ireland have been seeing increasing incidence of aggression from patients who refuse to wear masks during appointments. Regardless of …

With One Vaccine Fully Approved, It’s Time to Hit Up ‘Hesitant’ Patients Again

One of the oft-heard objections to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine has been that “they’re not really approved” by virtue of their being OK’d for use under the Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization. Now that the Pfizer vaccine has complete approval from the FDA (with Moderna expected to follow shortly), it’s time to find out which vaccine-hesitant patients were really waiting for this moment and which were just offering up a convenient excuse but …

Still Have Staff Refusing to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Your Elected Officials May Be Ready to Help

Healthcare workers who have refused to get the COVID-19 have been a concern not only for patients and colleagues, but also in terms of public perception of the advisability of vaccination. To put it bluntly, they’re setting a bad example. Some municipal and state governments apparently agree, as they’ve taken steps to require certain HCWs to get the vaccine unless they qualify for specific exemptions, depending on the state. As noted in Patient Care, the …

Is It ‘Too Little, Too Late’ for COVID-19 Booster Recommendations to Stop the Delta Surge?

News concerning the advisability and availability of booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines has been evolving almost as quickly as data regarding new cases of the virus itself lately. Most striking was an announcement from Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that her agency now recommends a third dose of some vaccines for certain patients—though that will likely expand in due time. The decision is in line with a …

Be Advised: Patients with the Delta Variant May Have Symptoms Different from Other Variants

It continues to be a difficult proposition to get a handle on a “standard” constellation of symptoms among patients with COVID-19. It’s been made even more difficult by the ongoing rise of the Delta variant. A leading public health official in Louisiana, where the pandemic is taking as great a toll as anywhere in the world at the moment, told New Orleans radio station WWL that symptoms associated with Delta are distinct from those associated …

Free JUCM Webinar: Why You (and Your Patients) Can’t Afford to Miss Certain Can’t-Miss Diagnoses

The patient who presents with an articulate, specific explanation of their complaint is both a blessing and a curse to the urgent care provider. On the plus side, you’re not forced into a game of 20 questions just to get a sense of why they’re sitting in your exam room. On the downside, even the most forthcoming patient can’t tell you what they’re unaware of. They know what’s uncomfortable, but not much else—and that can …

With Teachers Backing Vaccine Mandates, It’s Time to Offer Your Services to Local Schools

Outside of the healthcare environment, you’d be hard pressed to find a professional who is more at risk for COVID-19 by virtue of long-term exposure to large numbers of people than teachers (especially those who teach younger children who are ineligible to receive the vaccine at this time). Those educators then share whatever exposure they’ve had with loved ones at home, of course. In spite of this, as in other settings, some teachers are begging …

Pediatric Hospitals Are Getting Slammed with COVID-19; Can Urgent Care Help?

As readers of JUCM News know, it appeared early in the COVID-19 pandemic that children were either at reduced risk for COVID-19 compared with adults or less likely to become severely ill and die from the virus. And, in fact, the virus has proven less hazardous for younger patients compared with adults. If new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are any indication, however, the Delta variant is another story altogether. The …

After Riding the Bench Early on, Urgent Care Has Performed Like an All-Star During the Pandemic

Urgent care operators stood ready to pitch in as COVID-19 ravaged states throughout the U.S. early in the pandemic—but were largely unable to do so thanks to mystifying decisions on where testing supplies and the like would be allocated. According to research conducted by Experity, however, that changed in a big way in 2020, when urgent care visits jumped 58%. In fact, as Experity CEO David Stern, MD, CPC explained to Healthcare IT News, urgent …

Are We Setting Ourselves Up for the ‘Twindemic’ We Dodged Last Year?

When the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic first became evident, the term “twindemic” (simultaneous high rates of both SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal influenza) was everywhere. Not only did it never emerge, but new data published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report show that incidence of flu, respiratory syncytial virus, common human coronaviruses, parainfluenza viruses, human metapneumovirus, respiratory adenovirus, and rhinovirus and enterovirus were all actually lower than previous years. The authors speculate that the lower-than-average activity …