Practice Management
The line between payers and providers bent even further this week, as UnitedHealth Group Inc. announced plans to buy HealthCare Partners from DaVita Inc. It’s the second major acquisition of its kind for UHC this year; the company paid $2.3 billion for Surgical Care Affiliates just last March. The latest proposed deal came to light just days after CVS Health said it’s buying Aetna. It’s all part of a strategy for health insurers to lower …
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Apparently recognizing that the general public has become aware of the life-threatening dangers of opioid pain medications, WVU Urgent Care has taken the initiative to promote its non–opioid philosophy for pain management. In an article posted their website, they take a stab at educating patients on other options that may be appropriate to help diminish pain, depending on the patient’s condition and needs. In that article, WVU Urgent Care physician Saira George, MD explains that the …
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It’s not an oversimplification to say that the difficult thing about providing care for truckers is that they’re not in the same place for long. What’s worse, there are certain occupational hazards that make access to care especially important. According to UrgentCareTravel (UCT), 80% of the 3.8 million professional truck drivers in the U.S. are obese; half live with untreated sleep apnea; and 65% don’t have a primary care physician. So, UCT is partnering with …
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If CVS’s $69 billion deal to buy Aetna goes through, one of the first things the company is expected to do is broadly expand its retail health clinic business—ultimately saving the company more than $1 billion annually, according to a report from Reuters. The presumed savings would flow out of efforts to improve access to preventative care through the CVS clinics. CVS has roughly 9,700 drugstores (though only a thousand or so have clinics), while …
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Many urgent care operators promote their clinics on the basis that they’re entrenched in the heart of the community. This is the season to prove it. Lansing (MI) Urgent Care is already doing that by supporting the Greater Lansing Food Bank’s efforts to raise money and collect food and in-kind contributions for area residents in need as winter takes hold. In New Jersey, IMA Urgent Care Centers is collecting new, unused toys for the Toys …
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It’s relatively early in the season, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that influenza activity is already rising—and several markers are higher than normally seen this early. Four children have already died this season, and four of the CDC’s 10 regions are at or above their regional baselines. Another bad sign: Australia, whose data are often a predictor of flu severity in the U.S., just completed its worst flu season on record. …
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You promote your urgent care operation well, hire competent clinicians, and offer a robust array of services. So, why don’t more patients return? The problem might be that they don’t feel any sense of connection to your clinic; even worse, the same could be true of your staff. If that’s the case, you might find the solution in the Urgent Care Association’s next live webinar, during which James Jiloty, PHR, MSHR, MSLD will lead a …
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The parents of a Pittsburgh-area boy knew exactly what was wrong, but had no idea how serious the consequences could be. Somehow the 5-year-old dislodged a small, lithium disc battery from a fidget spinner and promptly swallowed it. The parents rushed him into the car with the intent of taking him to the emergency room, but as he became more agitated they opted for the closest urgent center. Ultimately, he needed immediate surgery to remove …
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A study by West Virginia University has shown that urgent care not only has great potential to improve the chance for positive health outcomes in rural areas, but also holds great promise for operators who are willing to make the investment in the country. Joshua Hall, associate professor of economics and director of the Center for Free Enterprise at WVU’s College of Business and Economics, led a team of researchers who considered the entry of …
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Kaiser Permanente in Southern California reports that using computer alerts to inform physicians when antibiotics may not be the best course of treatment for sinusitis reduced the chance of an antibiotic being prescribed—with some qualifiers. The study, published recently in the American Journal of Managed Care, tracked nearly 22,000 cases of acute sinusitis in adults in primary care and urgent care offices. Researchers found that clinical decision support was associated with a 22% decrease in …
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