Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Listen to the CDC: Push Flu Shots Early This Year

After last year’s tough flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already urging the public to get their flu shots early, recommending vaccination no later than the end of October. That means it’s not too early to start letting your patients know your urgent care center is the perfect place to get one. As always, the need is especially great for children, anyone with a compromised immune system, the elderly, and pregnant …

A Full Tank of Gas, a Big Bowl of Chili—and a Quick Throat Culture While You’re at It

Truckers are used to a lot of the hardships that come along with driving nearly nonstop every week. Having to choose between doing their jobs and taking care of their health should not be among them. So, VelocityCare/Carilion Clinic is building an urgent care center smack dab in the middle of a truck stop in Raphine, VA, complete with an on-site pharmacy. Seeing as Raphine is located in the scenic—but rural—Shenandoah Valley, the seemingly unusual …

Be Alert for Chagas Infections—300,000 Americans Already Have It

Some of the symptoms are relatively generic—fever, headache, fatigue—but that’s actually one of the risks for patients infected with Chagas disease, which can cause stroke and heart failure if it’s not caught and treated in time. If you have patients with those common complaints, look further to see if they have a rash or swelling without an explanation; if so, consider sending out a blood smear for analysis or referring them for testing immediately. Chagas …

Nobody Wins When Social Media Battles Get Out of Hand

There’s no question that positive reviews on social media can help drive new patients to your urgent care center. The counterpoint to that is that negative reviews have the potential to keep even formerly satisfied customers from returning. Things have escalated beyond simple comments online in the case of a Michigan healthcare facility and a family that was unhappy with the care they received. That family first aired its grievances over the care one family …

Free JUCM Webinars Offer Tips to Optimize Utility—and Profitability—of Imaging Services

If there’s one word that’s representative of the ethos of the urgent care industry, it would be innovation. The very idea that a patient could wake up with a symptom that needs immediate attention but doesn’t constitute a true emergency, and receive care from a physician the same day without an appointment revolutionized the entire field of healthcare. That was just the baseline, of course, as true innovators continue to refine the urgent care approach …

Facility Fees Are Becoming More Common—But May Also Disappear

For every independent urgent care operator who claims facility fees give them a competitive edge over their health system counterparts, there’s a hospital-based numbers cruncher licking his lips over the revenue those fees provide. Either way, with more and more hospitals bringing single-location or small-group operations into the fold, patients may start to wonder why the same care provided by the same providers in the same location no longer costs the same. If you’re a …

Requiring Flu Vaccination Drives Provider Compliance

It won’t be long before providers will be pitching much-needed flu vaccinations to the patients coming through your front door. Their advice might ring truer if they themselves have had a flu shot, of course. Whether due to a false sense of invincibility or stubbornness, some clinicians defy all logic—and pleading by their employers—and just don’t get vaccinated. In the 2015–16 flu season, in fact, only 79% of healthcare workers got flu shots, according to …

Add Measles to the List of Outbreaks on the Rise

Last week we told you about a serious uptick in cases of West Nile virus across the country. Now health officials from coast to coast are warning that cases of measles are on the rise. Twenty-one states have reported 118 cases, to date, this year—a pace that would result in the highest number of cases in 3 years if it continues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It may be beneficial to …

Wet Late Summer Weather Prompts West Nile Surge—and You Can Help

Mosquitoes just love wet weather. Unfortunately, that includes pests carrying the West Nile virus—leading to a surge in reported cases in 40 states. Whether it’s by helping to prevent its spread or being there to treat patients who may be affected, it’s a good time to prepare yourself. American Family Care opted for the former course of action by offering free prevention kits, aimed at helping residents in their surrounding communities avoid mosquito bites in …

Cost Prompts More Than 20% of Americans to Pass on Medical Care

A new survey by Bankrate reveals that 22% of people in the United States have skipped medical care, or have a close family member who has opted not to get medical care in the past year because they felt they couldn’t afford it. Of those, 29% got their insurance in the individual marketplace (eg, Affordable Care Act exchanges), while 22% were covered by employee health plans. Even those who are confident they can afford their …