Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

2020 Be Remembered for—Beyond the Obvious?

If you surveyed Google data for 2020, you’d probably find that some of the most oft-used terms of the year were pandemic, covid, coronavirus, or even social distancing, work from home, and new normal. Let’s just say it’s been a year of seismic cultural change not only in the United States and across the globe, but also within the urgent care industry. While, clearly, there have been many hardships and tragedies this year, urgent care …

Turning Back the Tide of Antibiotic Resistance, One (Unfilled) Prescription at a Time

According to JUCM’s own chart research, antibiotics are the most-prescribed class of medications in urgent care. This is not surprising, given that six of the top 10 presenting complaints in urgent care encompass possible diagnoses for which an antibiotic could be an appropriate choice.1 Still, there’s no denying that antibiotics have been overprescribed across the board—in retail clinics, emergency room, traditional primary care offices, and urgent care. This was clearly validated in a research …

MIS-C: What to Look for—and the Consequences of Missing It

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appeared that children were somehow less susceptible to becoming infected and, if they did get sick, had some unexplained level of protection against becoming severely ill. Like many “facts” about the virus, however, our understanding has changed since then. While it still appears that children are getting sick at lower rates than adults, we now know COVID-19 can have dire consequences for younger patients. In fact, …

Left on the Bench at the Start of the Pandemic, Urgent Care Rebounds in a Big Way

If you worked in an urgent care center located anywhere but a major urban hotspot at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s likely your business suffered. You may have even seen your team diminished or your business (we hope temporarily) closed. It didn’t have to be that way. Between testing patients for COVID-19 and treating others for whom there was no room at the emergency room, it should have been a shining moment for …

Visits to Primary Care Are Down—While Visits to Urgent Care Are on the Rise

Cost, convenience, and quality are features healthcare consumers cherish. The challenge for healthcare consumers is to find a facility that offers all three. While they can certainly find quality care that’s convenient in their local emergency room, the cost for that care is high. A traditional primary care practice is also a good choice for quality care, but while the cost is going to be much lower than in the ED the patient may have …

Urgent Care’s Upward Trend of Rapid Testing Continues for Another Year

Convenience has always been the hallmark of the urgent care experience. A patient who wakes up feeling unwell doesn’t want to wait a few days to see their primary care provider—especially if they have something that requires medication. And the best way to sort that out quickly is with a rapid test. Patients certainly understand that, as the number of rapid tests performed in urgent care centers continues to grow. Interestingly, while the total keeps …

Whether by Strain or Drain, COVID-19 Is Hitting Urgent Care Hard

Paradoxically, some urgent care centers are struggling due to low patient volumes during the COVID-19 crisis; patients who aren’t feeling that bad are afraid to venture out to a healthcare facility, while others who fear they could have the virus are heading to the hospital (hopefully, after calling first as recommended). Some operators have chosen to close for a while or consolidate locations. On the other hand, urgent care operators in urban, heavily affected areas …

Image May not Be Everything, but Imaging Comes Pretty Close

It used to be that the ability to administer x-rays on site was enough to distinguish one urgent care center’s superiority over another. With most urgent care operators understanding that patients have come to expect x-ray services these days, however, it’s not such a competitive advantage. Rather, making the process as smooth as possible and ensuring the reads are spot-on should encourage patients to come back in the future. Failing to do so will likely …

Thirty-Three Billion Reasons Patients Should Be Heading to Urgent Care Instead of the ED

Urgent care has flourished because of its defining attribute of providing high-quality, walk-in care more efficiently and less expensively than the emergency room offers. Yet, we continue to read articles in the mainstream media saying that so many people still flock to the ED with relatively minor complaints that during high-volume periods (like flu season), hospital and local health officials practically beg them to go to an urgent care center instead. The question of why …

Most Urgent Care Centers Give Immunization a Shot—of One Type or Another

If you haven’t noticed, it’s flu season. In fact, it’s been flu season longer than usual for this point compared with past years, thanks to an unexpectedly early arrival. With months to go, though, there’s still time for patients who have not been immunized to reap the benefits of getting a flu shot. This is not to say that influenza is the only immunization patients need. With reports of measles also beginning to climb as …