Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Another State Sounds the Alarm on Hepatitis A Cases. Do You Know What to Do?

Florida is the latest state to declare a public health emergency due to a spike in confirmed cases of hepatitis A. The state surgeon general announced there have been more than 2,000 so far this year—vs 548 in 2018 entirely. State and local health officials are investigating the sources, and urging residents to get vaccinated against hep A. Incidence has jumped in other parts of the country, as well. According to the Centers for Disease …

Fueled by Private Equity, a Louisiana Urgent Care Company Triples in Size

Today, SouthStar Urgent Care has 11 clinics in relatively small markets in Louisiana. By year’s end, they expect to have 19; come 2020, they’re adding another 18, tripling their location count in the space of a few months. SouthStar’s new president and chief operating officer says the sudden, dramatic growth is a sign of the company’s commitment to Louisiana and its passion for supporting communities. While that may be, urgent care watchers also recognize it …

Fail to Look Past the Presenting Complaint and You Could Land in Court—and Harm the Patient

A woman presented to an urgent care center in Santa Fe, NM to have pain and bruising in her chest checked out after she took a fall. X-rays showed now evidence of fractures or contusion, so the woman was given a prescription for pain medication and released, with no instructions for follow-up care. Return trips to the same urgent care center followed suit. Months later, after visiting another healthcare provider, she was diagnosed with lung …

Telemedicine Reimbursements Are Expanding Along with Utilization; Is It Time to Try It?

State support for reimbursing telemedicine providers is growing at a fast and furious pace—as is consumer adoption of telemedicine services. According to the American Telemedicine Association’s 2019 State of the States Report: Coverage and Reimbursement, 40 states and the District of Columbia have adopted substantive policies or received awards to expand telehealth coverage and reimbursement—just since 2017. In doing so, they’re also increasing access for patients and incentivizing providers (including urgent care operators) to jump …

Urgent Care Could Be Saving the Healthcare System $32 Billion a Year

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 …

Teach Families About Urgent Care by Helping Disadvantaged Kids Prepare for the School Year

It’s only August, but some regions of the country have already had their back-to-school days. Others are just now seeing advertisements for blockbuster sales of school supplies. For some families, though, those promotions serve as a painful reminder that new supplies are out of reach for their children. Dayton (NV) Urgent Care has taken notice of this and is trying to ease the load by collecting community donations of backpacks and school supplies appropriate for …

Online Patient Reviews Quantify Merits of—and Show Lots of Love for—Urgent Care

A study just published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine highlights the growing trend of patients flocking to urgent care centers, and having a positive experience once they get there. The research considers more than 84,500 urgent care center reviews and over 16,400 emergency department reviews on Yelp. In general, the authors note, patients give higher ratings to urgent care; around 60% of the urgent care reviews were four stars or more, while around the …

You Should Be Commended for Your Antibiotic Stewardship Efforts—Literally

The Urgent Care Association and the College of Urgent Care Medicine have launched a new initiative to formally acknowledge urgent care operators who demonstrate compliance with the Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Antibiotic Stewardship Commendation program is intended to encourage urgent care centers to become more proactive in their antibiotic stewardship efforts. Using evidence-based recommendations for diagnosis and management, participating urgent care operators can design …

Drive-by Promotions May Help Patients Choose the Right Care Setting—Including Yours

Despite countless urgent care centers devoting lots of time, signage, and promotional messages to helping patients understand when they can go to an urgent care center or really do need to go to the emergency room, confusion prevails for too many. They go to the ED with a common earache or after they’ve stepped in a ditch and sprained their ankle. Or they go to an urgent care center with chest pain when there’s an …

To Reel in New Patients, You Need the Right Bait

By the time August rolls around, parents may be running out of ideas on how to keep the kids occupied with healthy outdoor summer pursuits. That’s also around the time they have to start thinking about ensuring vaccinations are up to date, and sports physicals have cleared them to compete in the fall. Immediate Care Medical Walk-In of New Jersey hit on a way to reach out to families with those concerns while also giving …