Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Provider Burnout Grew as the Pandemic Dragged On. What Do We Do About It?

A survey of physicians published by Mayo Clinic Proceedings found a “dramatic” increase in burnout coinciding with lower satisfaction scores on work–life integration (WLI) 21 months into the COVID-19 pandemic compared with earlier periods. By 2021, 62.8% of physicians who participated admitted to at least one manifestation of burnout, compared with 38.2% in 2020. WLI fell from 46.1% in 2020 to 30.2% in 2021. Emotional exhaustion scores tracked along with those findings, increasing from a …

Are Children Safe from Sexual Predators in Your Urgent Care Center?

Public service initiatives have done a thorough job of introducing children and the general public to “stranger danger.” However, there is no corresponding widespread campaign for adults who are legally bound to report viable concerns that a child could be a victim of sexual abuse (ie, mandatory reporters), including educators, clergy, healthcare professionals, and others. Rather, it’s up to those various disciplines to ensure their cohorts understand how to recognize red flags—including warning signs that …

Ensure You Can Justify Every Prescription, or Face the Consequences

An osteopathic physician in Illinois was just sentenced to 1 year in prison for writing alprazolam prescriptions for patients for nontherapeutic use. According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, he 1) didn’t examine the six patients he was prescribing for, 2) knew there was no medical need for the drugs, and 3) had knowledge that the drugs would be sold or abused. Not surprisingly, it was also shown that …

APPs Are Moving to Capitalize on Gains Made During the Pandemic as Their Numbers Grow

In the all-hands-on-deck peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many states cleared the way for physician assistants to take on more authority—temporarily, in order to get through the crisis. Now that things have smoothed out a bit (at least for now), PAs are pushing for at least some of those relaxed limitations to become permanent, according to an article published by Becker’s Hospital Review. The article goes on to point out that some physician groups, including …

We’ve Been Prepping for—and Fearing—a Twindemic for Years. Could Its Time Have Arrived?

Public health advocates have been warning since year 1 of the pandemic that a simultaneous wave of influenza and COVID-19 could have devastating consequences to the U.S. population, healthcare system, and economy. To date, we’ve collectively managed to dodge that bullet. As we approach flu season this year, though, some experts are wondering out loud whether our luck might have run out. That concern is bolstered by the fact that Australia “had a very bad …

Decreasing Margins May Move Hospitals to Partner More Frequently with Urgent Care

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients who may have previously gone to the closest hospital emergency room for nonemergent complaints simply went without care or managed to get care through other means. According to an article just published by Fierce Healthcare, margins at those hospitals have suffered accordingly, with the real threat that they’ll continue to do so thanks to patients’ new reliance on urgent care, telehealth, and other options. As a result, …

Unlikely? Yes, but You Must Be Prepared for a Vehicle Crashing Through Your Door

The fact that it’s so newsworthy will tell you the odds of a car crashing through your front door are pretty low. That doesn’t minimize the consequences when it happens to you, though. The operators of WellNow Urgent Care in Huber Heights, OH are finding that out the hard way right now. As noted in an article published in the Dayton Daily News, two people were injured when a vehicle collided into the building; one …

Be Alert—Acute Flaccid Myelitis May Be Returning with a Vengeance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated a Health Alert Network bulletin last week concerning an uptick in severe respiratory illness attributed to both rhinovirus and Enterovirus in children across the country. Some of the Enterovirus patients tested positive for EV-D68, which has been associated with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a neurologic complication found to induce polio-like symptoms. Consequently, the CDC “urge(s) healthcare providers to consider EV-D68 as a possible cause of acute, severe …

How Valuable Is Urgent Care? Ask the Small-Town Mayor Aching for One in His Community

MedExpress’s decision to close down its 7-year-old urgent care center in Haverhill, MA last month didn’t sit well with Mayor James Fiorentini. Obviously, no civic-minded public official wants to see a successful business vacate the community, for economic reasons alone. But hizzoner has been very public in decrying the void the departure leaves in the town’s healthcare resources. According to an article published in the local newspaper Eagle Tribune, Fiorentini is “looking to recruit another …

Unnecessary X-Rays—and Related Billing—Land a Physician in Prison

A physician in California has been sentenced to 7 years in prison after being convicted of ordering “excessive and medically unnecessary x-rays to healthy patients” and subsequently billing both Medicare and Medi-Cal as reported in MedPage Today. State law enforcement first caught wind that something in the practice could be amiss in 2016. Upon investigating the cases of 10 reportedly randomly selected patients, they say they found evidence of medically unnecessary x-rays and fraudulent billing. …