Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Recognizing the Difference Between Burnout and Moral Injury Can Help Save Your Staff

Physicians may be quick to admit certain symptoms of burnout—stress, decreased productivity, diminishing compassion—but are loath to consider they’re actually burned out. Call it denial or professional pride, but in truth they might be correct. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, however; a recent post on the healthcare website Stat notes an increase in “moral injury,” which is often misidentified as burnout. It’s actually akin to post-traumatic stress …

WSJ Calls Out Hospitals for ‘Secret Deals” that Hinder Competition (eg, from Urgent Care)

No less than the Wall Street Journal has claimed that “secret deals” hospitals strike with health insurers contribute in a big way to runaway health spending in the United States. In Behind Your Rising Health-Care Bills: Secret Hospital Deals That Squelch Competition, the Journal describes “secret restrictions” such as “anti-steering clauses that prevent insurers from steering patients to less-expensive or higher-quality healthcare providers.” (Certainly urgent care would fall into one, if not both, of those …

Don’t Let Cultural Insensitivity Cost Your Urgent Care Center Patients (or Bad Press)

A Maryland urgent care center is feeling the sting of negative news coverage, not to mention possible loss of patients and its reputation, after a woman says her daughter was denied care because of her race—by staff members who say they thought they were following company policy. The white mother brought her adopted black daughter in to the clinic after the girl jammed her finger. Based on the racial difference, the person at the front …

Don’t Let Tech Safety Lapses Sink Your Urgent Care Business

We stress the importance of hygiene and a sterile work environment clinically—that’s what keeps patients and staff safe, after all. However, diligence to tech hygiene and security is just as important to the health of your business, as we can see from a couple of news reports this week. First, eClinicalWorks was fined $132,000 for violating an agreement with the Department of Justice that required vendors to report patient safety issues using their EHR system …

Need Incentive to Push Flu Shots? CDC Says 80,000 Died Last Season

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its official estimate of the toll of last year’s flu season: An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and related complications—the highest death toll in over 40 years. Public health experts usually consider it a “bad year” when flu-related mortality hits the 20,000 mark, according to an interview CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD gave to the Associated Press. The severity was due to a particularly harsh …

Clothes Don’t Make the Urgent Care Physician—But They Make an Impression on the Patient

There was a time when physicians dressed to the nines while on the job; you’d think they were on their way to a 19th century ball, actually, according to a recent post in Advisory Board. That was also an era of tinctures and salves that had very little to do with the science aspect of medicine, however. As times changed, so did the provider’s “uniform.” Doctors adopted the traditional white coat in order to look …

Ultrasound Can Help Keep Patients In-House—and Boost Profitability

A patient who’s never visited your urgent care center before presents with acute pain in his right shoulder after an overly aggressive touch football game with some buddies, reliving their glory days on the high school gridiron. It could be a torn rotator cuff—in fact, you’re sure of it, but you really need an ultrasound image to confirm. Scenario 1: You do what you can for the patient’s pain, tell him to take it easy, …

Boom in ‘Company Doctors’ Could Be a Boon for Urgent Care/Occ Med Providers

The popularity of workplace medical practices has waxed and waned for ages, but with major employers like Amazon and Apple building actual on-site medical facilities for their workers, the “company doctor” may be entering a new golden age. According to a new report from Mercer, one-third of U.S. businesses with 5,000 or more employees and company-sponsored plans now have a general medical clinic on site. The idea is to lower medical costs and encourage optimal …

Bill Won’t Limit First-Time Opioid Scripts—But Allows Remote Medication-Assisted Treatment

Many medical organizations, insurers, and state legislatures have responded to the ongoing opioid crisis by limiting the number of doses prescribed for acute pain at any one time. The bill just passed by the U.S. Senate, however, puts no limits on first-time prescriptions for opiates. That’s in contrast to earlier versions of the bill, which did seek to impose hard limits on opioid prescriptions. The American Medical Association, among other stakeholders, objected to the idea …

Lawmakers Want to Meet with BCBS Over Claims That It Stifles Urgent Care Competition

An urgent care operator has accused Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina of trying to restrict competition among urgent care centers by refusing to allow any new ones into its network in the Palmetto State—possibly due to a conflict of interest, they say. BCBS has called the anticompetition charge “an unfounded attack on the company’s integrity.” Nevertheless, state legislators Mike Burns and Bill Chumley see the urgent care operator’s point and have asked for …