Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care Signs Up for the War Against Opioid Abuse

Eighty urgent care centers in Los Angeles County, California are closing ranks in an effort to stem runaway abuse of opioid analgesics. Working in concert with the county health department, Safe Med LA signees pledge to follow opioid prescribing guidelines established by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine; to consider screening more patients for opioid misuse or addiction; and to stop refilling “lost” opioid prescriptions and scripts written for chronic pain. Urgent care centers started …

Why an Arizona Measles Outbreak is an Occupational Medicine Concern

Arizona is home to the largest measles outbreak in the U.S., currently. That by itself does not warrant headlines, but health officials there have traced all 22 cases since May to a single detention center. The importance to urgent care operators—especially those that provide occupational health services—is that the outbreak is blamed, in part, one the refusal of some workers at the Eloy Detention Center to get vaccinated. Detainees there have all been vaccinated at …

Urgent Care Doc Lauded as ‘Hero of Public Health’

A couple who both complained of vomiting and diarrhea on a Saturday morning could easily be dismissed as partygoers who overindulged the night before. William Rose, MD, FACEP took the time to dig a little deeper, though, and ultimately wound up heading off a possible Salmonella outbreak in West Virginia. The WVU Urgent Care physician thought the symptoms were more indicative of food poisoning than a sour stomach; he told the health department as much …

Make Patients Feel Welcome, and They May Make You Successful

If there’s truth to the cliché that “first impressions are everything,” then as a retail and service business, urgent care should put its best foot forward whenever patients enter the center, providing a greeting not dissimilar to what shoppers expect when entering a retail store. In recent weeks I’ve visited three urgent care centers and upon crossing the entry threshold, experienced three completely different “welcomes.” In the first center, I was greeted by multiple signs pointing …

Keep Your Business Healthy by Encouraging Vacations

Pop quiz: Which physician is better for your business—the one who can’t wait to start his much-anticipated trip to Tuscany, or the one who is going to forego a vacation because she thinks the practice can’t live without her for 2 weeks? If you chose the world traveler, you have a good chance of keeping your patient satisfaction scores up—and maybe even avoiding med errors and resultant lawsuits. Project: Time Off reports that 55% of …

More Data Show Freestanding ERs Cost More Than Urgent Care

Insurers and other parties who hold a stake in the economics of urgent care tend to respond to cold hard data. Here’s some: Seven of the top 10 reasons patients sought care in a freestanding emergency room in 2014 could have been treated safely—but much less expensively—in an urgent care center, according to a new study by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). Take sore throat, which topped the list of reasons …

MedStar Ransomware Attack a Reminder: Guard Against System Outages

MedStar Health management thought the company was as prepared as it could be for computer system shutdowns. That bubble was burst when MedStar became the victim of a ransomware attack earlier this year, rendering its systems unusable for a time. The company had a corporate emergency plan, as well as a plan for each of its 10 hospitals and 250 outpatient clinics, but nothing that prepared it to handle all systems going down at once. …

Due Diligence is Critical When It Comes to Credentialing

Credentialing is a process used to evaluate the qualifications and practice history of a doctor, including a review of completed education, training, residency, and licenses. It also includes any certifications issued by a board in the doctor’s area of specialty. Many urgent care centers assume their providers are fully credentialed; however, it is advisable to do your due diligence when engaging a new physician to ensure he or she has the necessary credentials. Even if …

UCA Webinar: Making the Right Diagnosis for Common Urgent Care Complaints

In urgent care, you get one shot to make the right diagnosis for patients you may have never seen before. If you want to make sure you see them again (ie, they become loyal customers), you have to get it right the first time. Michael Loeb, MD, will cover differentiating factors for making the right diagnosis when presented with common complaints, as well as appropriate management for sinusitis, bronchitis, dysuria, urethritis, and more in 5 …

Blue Cross Stakes a Claim in Urgent Care Startup

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota sees a bright future for Livio Health Group, a new company that offers in-home urgent care and primary care services—so much so that it has invested an undisclosed amount to help the St. Paul, MN company increase its market presence. Livio sends clinicians to homes and other facilities to treat injuries and acute illness but also to help patients manage chronic conditions and offer diagnostic testing and preventative …