Practice Management
It’s expected that patients are not at their best when they enter an urgent care center. Clearly they’re not feeling well in one way or another. That’s probably compounded by the fact that they couldn’t get in to see their “regular” doctor—and the overall stresses of having to be around other sick people in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Tempers may be short. You and your team can’t afford to respond in a like …
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Many Americans are fed up with social isolation, worrying about loved ones and themselves, wearing masks, and delays in rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some are getting desperate and scouring the internet for outside-the-box, readily available ways to supposedly shore up their immune systems and ward off the virus, or even to self-treat infection itself. Unfortunately, their efforts are in vain if an article just published by JAMA Network Open is any indication. Researchers conducted …
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These are tough times for urgent care. Many operators are still struggling to get back to some sense of a “normal” way of doing business and, likely, recovering from a serious shortfall in patient visits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this is no time to experience delays in getting paid on the essential services you provide to patients in need. And yet, if you’re not up to date on changes in …
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As the East Coast braces for its third snowstorm in less than 2 weeks, much of Texas is still struggling with very un-Texas-like cold temperatures and widespread power outages. Six people were killed and dozens were injured in a 133-car pileup on a slick highway near Fort Worth. An urgent care center in Fairfield, CT was featured on local media talking about a sharp rise in injuries due to people falling on icy walkways. These …
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Patients (and probably more than a few healthcare professionals) are all about the COVID-19 vaccine these days. However, the need for ongoing vigilance against other communicable diseases goes on. To that end, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed its recommended immunization schedule for adults for 2021. You can read the entire report here, but following are illness-specific changes that may be most relevant for the …
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Regular readers of JUCM News know telehealth has been on the rise among urgent care centers for the past year. It’s been so popular across the healthcare spectrum during the pandemic that the federal government just extended certain waivers, such as approving the right of patients to “see” providers in states other than their own, during the current public health emergency. If you’re thinking this would be a great time to dip your toe in …
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Millions of Americans have already availed themselves to one of the newly approved COVID-19 vaccines. Multiples more are eager to get their turn. There are many, however, who say they won’t get the shot because the vaccines were “rushed through” the approval process. While that’s not true—studies were prioritized due to the urgent nature of the pandemic—too many people are afraid that they’re putting themselves at unreasonable risk for a bad reaction, with anaphylaxis being …
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Urgent care patients and staff members who wear a loose-fitting mask are putting themselves and those around them at unnecessarily higher risk for COVID-19 infection, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, the CDC now specifically states that a tight-fitting mask provides more protection than a loose mask, and that doubling up on masks is advisable—especially now that new, more contagious strains are making the rounds. If …
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It’s been assumed for close to a year that the isolation and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic would take a toll on our collective sense of wellbeing and peace of mind. Those consequences are now being borne out in data on presentations to the emergency room for mental health conditions, suicide attempts, drug overdoses, intimate partner violence, and child abuse or neglect. All increased as a percentage of overall ED visits over a 7-month …
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A couple of years ago, stories of patients getting surprise bills from freestanding emergency rooms—often based on the mistaken presumption that they had actually visited an urgent care center—ran rampant. Legislation in various states reduced the risk of that happening, and urgent care centers did their part by taking great pains to differentiate themselves from freestanding ERs. However, now that COVID-19 testing has become both common and urgently necessary, patients are again getting stung by …
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