Practice Management
In spite of major public information campaigns on the safety and lifesaving capability of the COVID-19 vaccines, only around half of American are fully vaccinated (meaning they’ve received the full complement of a one- or two-dose vaccine and a booster shot). And only 80% have gotten their standard doses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, getting at least some more patients to comply with vaccination guidelines may take something quite simple: …
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It’s no secret that disparities exist between the accessibility and quality of care afforded to various economic and racial groups in the United States. We don’t need to look any further than the COVID-19 pandemic for evidence of that, as immunization and testing rates have generally been lower among people of color compared with white individuals. Paradoxically, the pandemic may provide the impetus for positive change in healthcare inequities, as well as a new opportunity …
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Normal procedures are anything but in the era of COVID-19. So, it’s imperative to ensure that all staff members are aware of the special circumstances surrounding billing for services related to the pandemic. Patients expect (correctly) that they can get vaccinated or tested without incurring any out-of-pocket expenses. Consequently, it came as quite a surprise when a patient in the Norcross, GA area stopped into an urgent care center to be tested for COVID-19—only to …
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In spite of significant advances in many aspects of the medical community’s approach to COVID-19, patients continue to be hospitalized and die from the virus. In the vast majority of cases, though, the literal difference between life and death appears to come down to one factor that is under the patient’s control: immunization. In her latest press briefing, Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that Americans who are …
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Any notions that the declining case load indicates we’re nearly out of the COVID-19 woods should be dispelled with news that the BA.2 sublineage of the Omicron variant may be the most transmissible yet. An article published by MedPage Today, drawn from multiple sources in the United States and the United Kingdom, revealed that cases related to BA.2 were doubling every 4 days, with a 120% “growth advantage” over the original version of Omicron—which at …
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New cases of COVID-19 are falling across the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reports from multiple state health departments. The same is holding true for hospitalization rates—with the exception of the unvaccinated. This has proven to be especially true during the Omicron surge, according to new data from the CDC. In fact, being fully vaccinated (including both the initial vaccine dosage and a booster shot) has been found to …
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A few months ago, we shared news about a study indicating that the threat of myocarditis was greater for patients who got COVID-19 than for people who received a COVID vaccine and did not become infected. Now a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association raises new questions about a possible connection. Analysis of 1,626 cases of myocarditis showed rates were increased in vaccinated patients across age and sex strata, but …
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New Year’s resolutions to lose weight may be even more prevalent in 2022 than in years past, thanks to nearly 2 years of people feeling inhibited (or even banned) from hitting the gym during the pandemic. At the same time, many urgent care operators are still fighting to recover from hardships they suffered in the COVID-19 era. On the surface, it could seem like a great time to take a flyer on offering weight-loss services. …
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The urgent care industry has done a great job of making the case that it has the expertise and accessibility to be essential to the fight against COVID-19—a far cry from the early days when resources were channeled elsewhere. This was confirmed when the Centers for Disease Control and prevention made a point of including urgent care centers on the same level as emergency rooms in a study of the effectiveness of boosters for both the …
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It wasn’t long ago that we shared data, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicating that a 3-day course of remdesivir reduced risk for hospitalization or death in patients with COVID-19 and certain comorbidities but who had not yet been hospitalized with the virus. Since then—starting with misinformation shared during a panel discussion in the U.S. Senate—there has been chatter that rather than saving lives, use of remdesivir actually increases risk of death …
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