Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Patients Have a Hard Time Figuring Out When It’s Appropriate to Visit Urgent Care. Help Them Out

Community media resources are rife with articles and posts aiming to help readers understand when it makes sense to visit a hospital emergency room vs urgent care vs a retail pharmacy clinic. The Chicago-area Daily Herald just ran one listing complaints appropriate for presentation to various settings, for example. (For the record, their list for urgent care includes allergic reaction, sore throat, ear infection, sprains, animal bites, flu symptoms, minor burns and injuries, and broken …

Provider Shortages Are Hitting Some Specialties More Than Others. Will UC See the Overflow Patients?

We talk about the shortage of healthcare providers in appropriately urgent, though somewhat vague, terms. The fact is that some specialties are having a harder time than others right now, though—one of them being obstetrics and gynecology. According to a report published by Becker’s Hospital Review, 2023 applications for Ob/Gyn residencies are down from 2022. It goes on to note that numerous hospitals in the United States are closing or have already stopped offering obstetrics …

Do Business with the Federal Government? Stop Asking About Applicants’ Criminal Histories

In case you missed it, urgent care centers and other healthcare employers who have contracts with the federal government are now forbidden from asking prospective employees’ about their criminal history on applications or in the interview process. In fact, you’re not allowed to raise the question before you offer someone the job. The first time you’re allowed to raise the question is when you make a conditional offer of employment—after which you could open yourself …

Update: States Are Dropping Pandemic Rules for Healthcare Workers. What’s the Status in Yours?

Just last week we told you the federal government is allowing COVID-19 emergency declarations to expire without renewal for the first time since they were enacted to help protect the public and healthcare professionals from infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The first two—the national emergency declaration and the public health emergency—are set to expire on May 11. Now comes word that states are starting to rescind rules imposed during the pandemic. As reported by Becker’s …

New Data on Teenage Substance Abuse Are Out, and the Numbers May Surprise You

While access to marijuana and other illicit substances may have been hindered during the social distancing period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate at which teenagers continued to use alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs as of 2021 remained relatively high. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report, 2011–2021, a greater proportion of female than male high school students acknowledged smoking marijuana (18% to 14%, …

Leverage Local Media to Remind Patients That You’re There for them

Georgia Urgent Care in Milton, VT just restored their capability to offer x-rays and bone-density imaging. A new nurse practitioner is taking the next step in her career by joining the team at Sanford Health in Bemidji, MN. And Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital’s El Dorado Urgent Care center is now going to be seeing patients on the hospital campus. We know this because articles alerting the public to these events appeared in the St. …

Retail Health Chains Keep Planting New Seeds. How Many Will Bear Fruit?

As we reported recently, Walgreens keeps buying properties to enhance its efforts to capture business in the primary care sector. Now, as reported by Healthcare Dive, Walmart Health says it’s going to open 28 new locations next year, including two in Missouri and Arizona—fresh territory for them. If they follow through, that will bring the total number of WH locations in the country to 75 since launching in 2019. It appears their niche will be …

Provider Happiness Has Taken a Beating Since the Pandemic; Check in with Colleagues (and Yourself)

As JUCM News readers know, research has shown that healthcare provider burnout increased significantly over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. New research published by Medscape, which also took part in the project, took a slightly alternate approach to the issue by asking 9,100 providers in 29 specialties not only about burnout, but also to assess their degree of happiness. While urgent care was not one of those specialties, it’s noteworthy that the specialties most …

Providers and Coders Take Note: More Patients with Mental Health Issues Are Heading Your Way

It’s likely you’ve noticed seeing more patients with complaints related to their mental health and emotional wellbeing since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. What may be more surprising, if you hadn’t noticed, is that the trend began well before 2020. New research published by Health Affairs shows that between 2006 and 2018 the percentage of visits to primary care related to mental health concerns increased from 11% to 16%. The authors attributed the increase …

Walgreens Is Sinking More Money into the Primary Care Space

As JUCM News readers know, Walgreens is among the many retail drugstores and big box merchants trying desperately to break into the primary care medicine industry. It appears they’re among the most willing to invest heavily in that crusade, too. It was only a few months ago that we told you about the company’s dream of establishing a thousand clinics in its drugstores over the next 5 years. Now, as reported by Healthcare Finance News, …