Practice Management
It didn’t take long for physicians to notice that patients with COVID-19 also came down with pink eye more often than patients who did not have the virus. According to information presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in New Orleans and reported by MedPage Today this week, however, patients with COVID-19 are also more likely to have photophobia, retinal hemorrhage, and optic neuritis. Those experiencing long-haul disease, in particular, seem …
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Just in time for the Thanksgiving break, incidence of COVID-19 is creeping up again in many areas within the United States. While that’s probably not surprising, given the ongoing relaxation of masking rules and slow uptake of vaccination among children, it is alarming when one considers that families and friend groups who passed on large group celebrations last year are gearing up to mass together for turkey day next week. According to data published by …
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration just issued an Emergency Temporary Standard intended to protect workers from getting infected with COVID-19 while they’re on the job. The short version is that the ETS requires businesses with more than 100 employees to either mandate COVID-19 vaccination for its workers or to implement a policy that gives employees the option of either getting vaccinated or undergoing weekly COVID-19 testing and wearing a face covering while at work. …
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COVID-19 continues to have many people a little skittish about rushing to the emergency room. And between the pandemic and staffing problems, even some hospital administrators are recommending that patients visit an urgent care center unless they truly have an emergency. As such, urgent care providers should be aware of a new study published by JAMA Network regarding the need for re-treatment of children who were hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia. The population consisted of 824 …
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Patients can get flu shots—and now, COVID-19 vaccines—in a lot of locations other than your urgent care center. And certainly providing a couple of vaccines is not going to be a significant revenue stream. However, with so many people still in need of both, encouraging as many of them as possible to receive both vaccines could be viewed as a public service—and one that could help introduce you to countless families who could become long-term …
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As we’ve told you recently, weeks- (or even months-) long waits for primary care appointments are forcing more patients to consider whether a trip to urgent care for ongoing concerns would be a wiser choice. With senior citizens among them, it would also be wise for you to consider whether you’re on point with optimal coding practices for cognitive assessments—which are required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at annual wellness visits for …
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Low awareness of potentially lifesaving preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV may be leaving Black, Hispanic, and Latino patients at a disproportionate risk for illness and death compared with other patient populations according to an analysis of National HIV Prevention Program Monitoring and Evaluation data published recently by JAMA Network. Hispanic and Latino people make up 18% of the U.S. population but accounted for 29% of new U.S. HIV diagnoses between 2015 and 2019. Black Americans …
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While some employers are content to maintain remote or hybrid work situations for their workers, either because of strong stances by those employees or out of ongoing concern for COVID-19, others are pushing to repopulate the expensive buildings they’re paying for. The concern, of course, is that more exposure to each other could equate to more exposure to COVID-19 and increased risk for disease among the work force. So far, however, the risk among office …
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Walmart has been trying any number of tactics, for years, to become known as a reliable destination for immediate healthcare needs, essentially aspiring to become a rival of urgent care centers in their communities. As JUCM News readers know, one of their most recent efforts saw Walmart Health fail to land in 20 locations (which would have only constituted 0.004% of their 4,700 U.S. anyway). That was followed by a mass exodus by upper management …
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Despite increased emphasis on public education on the dangers of vaping various substances, the “past 12 months” prevalence of cannabis vaping by adolescents more than doubled between 2013 and 2020 (from 6.1% to 13.6%) according to an article published by JAMA Pediatrics. The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 17 unique studies from the United States and Canada, reflecting the experiences of 198,845 adolescents. They also discovered that preference for cannabis products seems …
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