Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Not Making Headway in Promoting Vaccinations to Patients? Try Changing Your Style

Some patients are eager to take your advice regarding vaccine-preventable diseases. Others not so much. That doesn’t mean they’re unreachable, however. A study just published in Pediatrics indicates how you approach the subject can make a difference. Focusing on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, the researchers found that acceptance rates were higher when the clinician used a “presumptive” communication style—making a strong recommendation based on the presumption that vaccination will be acceptable to the patient, as …

Free JUCM Webinar: Avoiding Common, Costly, and High-Risk Missed Diagnoses

“Everybody makes mistakes” couldn’t be more trite when you’re talking about the practice of medicine. And in urgent care medicine, where the provider could be faced with anything from an ingrown toenail to a life-threatening MI that really should be in the emergency room, the margin of error is razor thin. Missed diagnoses are especially foreboding, in terms of both the patient’s health and your legal risk. Some are more common than others and, therefore, …

Keep Valued Occ Med Clients by Helping Them Measure the Value of Your Services

You’ve done the hard part—selling your occupational medicine services and delivering on your promise of providing excellent care—but now you have to ensure the client recognizes the value you bring to the table. After all, return-on-investment is only as good as the data demonstrating it. What about return-on-value (ROV), though? As noted in a recent article in Milwaukee Business News’s Biz Times, the subtle difference may point decision-makers in slightly different directions. You should seize …

Help Patients Understand OTC Tamiflu Doesn’t Negate the Need for Urgent Care Flu Visits

With Sanofi now tasked with negotiating approval of Tamiflu to be sold over-the-counter, and with the 2019–2020 influenza season off to an early start, urgent care providers need to put on their health educator hats to both ensure patient safety and protect profitability during one of the busiest times of the year. It’s likely patients will think they have fewer worries than ever about the flu, but nothing could be further from the truth. First …

Profitable or Not, Cost Savings May Demonstrate Value in Virtual Care

One of the business arguments against telehealth is that no one has demonstrated it has strong revenue-building capabilities, to date. That’s still the case, but Intermountain Healthcare has quantified that cost savings can be realized with virtual medicine rooted in urgent care. As detailed in an article recently published on HealthLeaders, the average total cost of virtual care for a specified selection of presentations was $429, compared with $661 for on-site visits. (Compare both with …

Does Assembly Bill 5 Doom Locum Tenens in California?

Here’s the fact: California legislators approved a bill (Assembly Bill 5, or AB 5) that will reclassify “gig” workers from contractors to employees. Now here’s the fear: AB 5 will essentially doom the concept of locum tenens clinicians in the state. The bill was conceived as a way for gig workers to get benefits from the companies they contract with—though coverage of the bill has largely focused on app-based transportation companies Uber and Lyft. The …

Why Airport Urgent Care Failed to Take Off in Dallas and Las Vegas

Two years ago this month, we reported on the opening of an urgent care facility within the confines of D/FW International Airport in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX. The thinking at the time was that the combination of roughly 65,000 people working on site and around 100 times that number—65 million people—passing through the airport yearly made for a substantial customer base. Another operation followed suit, at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. However viable as the …

Know the Rules Regarding Overtime for NPs and PAs—or Face the Justice System

The United States Department of Labor has ordered a Mississippi urgent care operator to pay $147,622 in back wages to 16 nurse practitioners who were illegally deprived of overtime pay. The operator classified the NPs as independent contractors rather than employees and, as such, paid them a regular hourly rate—even when they worked more than 40 hours in a week, which is where they ran afoul of the law. The Department of Labor found that …

UCA Webinar: What You Need to Know About Workers’ Comp

Many urgent care operators have found occupational medicine to be a natural fit for their business. If you’re one of them, you know workers’ comp claims go with the territory—in fact, understanding workers’ comp is essential to your survival in the occ med space. And if you’re not operating in that space but are considering jumping in, you need to do so with your eyes wide open. What an Urgent Care Clinician Needs to Know …

With One Child Dead Already, U.S. Says the 2019–2020 Flu Season Will Be Brutal; Be Prepared

While most Americans may not consider the 2019–2020 flu season even underway yet, federal health officials are warning that the first death of the season—a 4-year-old California child—could be a warning sign of just how bad it’s going to get. The child, who did have underlying health problems, tested positive for influenza earlier this month. That case may indicate this flu season will be picking up steam fast—a notion supported by the just-concluded Australian flu …