Practice Management
FastMed Urgent Care has become the biggest urgent care provider in the country to offer patients telemedicine services. The company has partnered with TouchCare to start taking mobile video appointments in North Carolina, via smartphone or tablet. If all goes well there, FastMed plans to offer similar service in Arizona and Texas later this year. The company says it has a distinct advantage over virtual-only services because patients can start with a remote visit but …
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A new study by Neilsen Strategic Health Perspectives and the Council of Accountable Physician Practices affirms that outcomes are better when multiple providers who’ve treated the same patient share information. However, it also points out that communication between providers suffers when an urgent care center is outside of a health system. This represents a lost opportunity, as just 38% of physician offices provide access to an urgent cate center through the same medical group. Interestingly, …
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With an ongoing physician shortage expected to get worse in the coming years, the flexibility and cost advantages offered by urgent care could improve access to quality care for many while strengthening the industry’s place in the continuum of care. Rural areas are being hit especially hard, as are states with higher concentrations of minorities. Savvy urgent care operators will look to those areas when considering new locations. Some states are even willing to sweeten …
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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is the latest big insurer to start encouraging telemedicine for plan members with relatively minor complaints. As of July 1, BCBS will be working with American Well to offer the service to employers with fully insured and PPO policies. Plans see the new technology as a way to reduce costs—mainly by keeping patients out of the emergency room, which aligns perfectly with the urgent care approach—and to meet consumer …
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Some urgent care and occupational medicine providers have questions regarding the new OSHA requirement for Safety Data Sheets (SDS), effective June 1, 2016. Essentially, to be compliant you must: Make sure all of your Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS) are replaced with Safety Data Sheets (SDS) Assure that all hazards in your urgent care center are labeled with the new pictograms Re-up any training you’ve provided employees on OSHA compliance OSHA requires that employers keep …
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Part of the beauty of urgent care is that patients spend less time waiting to be seen. Even minimal time spent waiting can be made more pleasant—thus enhancing the patient experience—with access to magazines, newspapers, television, and refreshments to alleviate uncertainty, boredom, and aggravation. If you’ve added a television to the media offered to patients, consider carefully what they’ll be watching. Generally, urgent care centers display three types of programming: • Cable news (eg, CNN, …
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New data from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicate that while the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) has made sure more Americans have health insurance, it has done little to make care more affordable across the board. While nearly 90% of the country has coverage, NBER statistics show that more people than ever find basic healthcare unaffordable. A recent study of over 1 million patients from 2003 to 2007 illustrates just how …
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Louisiana lawmakers have passed a bill that would allow ambulances to deliver patients with non–life-threatening illnesses directly to urgent care centers in East Baton Rouge Parish. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center has volunteered to accept low-acuity ambulance patients at its 24/7 urgent care facility as part of the pilot program. The legislation is expected to help address poor access to emergency care in the area since one hospital closed and another shut …
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Urgent care centers and other facilities often ask patients to rate their experiences. However, the Federal Trade Commission says online reviews that include too many details constitute a violation of patient privacy, even if the patients themselves provided the information. The problem is that some survey companies don’t make it clear that reviews will wind up on the internet. Most recently, the FTC reached a settlement with Practice Fusion, a cloud-based electronic health records vendor, …
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Do you know how to get to the MOB—or are you wondering why you’d even want to go there? More on that in a moment. Successful urgent center centers must provide a sufficiently positive experience that patients want to return, and tell others to do likewise. But great service doesn’t just happen; it’s the result of deliberate planning and coordination of systems, processes, policies, and people. When a patient approaches your center, what does he …
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