Practice Management
Amazon. Dollar General. Berkshire Hathaway. JPMorgan Chase. Walgreens. Walmart (insert echo here). It’s been an interesting few years watching these giants try to do what you do. The biggest tragedy of all of this is the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent by these folks that could have been saved if someone on their end had simply picked up the phone and talked to one of us. No one called the Urgent …
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I like to think that I usually have a pretty good read on Urgent Care, but I am currently mystified by something and need your help. For as long as I can remember, everyone in Urgent Care has chanted a common refrain: “We need a seat at the table!” In the beginning, we were too small to make enough noise to be heard and way, way too tight on funds to even think about hiring …
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Scott Prysi, MD For the last 30 years, Urgent Care centers have been transforming healthcare by moving the patient to the center of care—that means serving patients with urgent medical problems with extended hours and onsite X-ray and lab services when and where they want it. We operated throughout the pandemic when virtually all other healthcare access points closed, and we came out stronger with new relationships with local hospitals and health departments as well …
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Here at the Urgent Care Association (UCA), we often used to ask ourselves, “Is this a UCA thing or a College thing or a Foundation thing?” Over the past few years of talking to all of you, I learned that we were not the only ones asking this question. When you build a house, over the years, you may add on a fantastic new sunroom, then an expansive extra bedroom, and then maybe you remodel …
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Members of the Urgent Care Association (UCA) get a lot of “free” stuff—resources, checklists, podcasts, job searches, magazines, webinars, templates, plans, and so on. But this year at the Urgent Care Convention we are going one better (two, actually). I’m talking about our new “Ask a Consultant” sessions and our Quality Programs Center, both of which essentially provide the space for free consulting (yes, free). The Ask a Consultant sessions feature top, vetted consultants who …
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Do you remember what it was like in the summer of 2020? If that summer had a theme, it would have been “overlooked.” Everyone was jumping up and down and waving their arms to get the attention of suppliers, government agencies, payers, diagnostic companies, and pharmaceutical companies so we could meet the needs of the patients literally lining up in front of our centers. We had to fight for every single thing we got, and …
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“Driving Change” is our overarching convention theme that we build on each year. When you are busy Driving Change in healthcare delivery, there aren’t a lot of breaks. In just the normal day-to-day of Urgent Care, you are anticipating, meeting, and exceeding the needs of your patients. You are doing the same for your occupational medicine employer customers. You are doing the same for your colleagues. You are doing the same for your strategic partners. …
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I have a story I want to share with you, but I’m finding it hard to do without it reeking of privilege. This is a story about feeling 100% welcomed in one place when you don’t feel that way in many others. This is a rare for me, and perhaps it will feel like a poor example to you. Yet, it is part of my lived experience and brought something home for me that made …
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Dear Urgent Care, I remember the day we first met. It was a long-ago Christmas Eve early in the morning, and I had awakened with a terribly sore throat. I was despondent, knowing no one would be willing to take care of me on the holiday, which meant it wouldn’t be a very merry one for me. Then, there you were. In a brick building on a well-traveled highway, your lights were on and your …
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I’m assuming you saw news stories last month with headlines like this: “Walmart and Other Drug Stores Want to Help You Skip Trips to the Doctor.” Walmart Health is set to open 28 new locations in the coming year. Consumers can get testing and treatment for strep, flu, and COVID-19 at a Walmart pharmacy in 12 states, at Walgreens in 13 states, and at CVS in 10 states. Rite Aid is working on it, too. …
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