Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Addressing Fraternization in the Urgent Care Workplace

Urgent message: Whereas sexual harassment is defined as unwanted and one-sided, many times employees choose to become romantically involved, requiring that urgent care centers have a policy and a plan to address workplace fraternization. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Networks and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. In 2019, McDonald’s fired its Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook for engaging in a relationship that violated company policy. The …

Telehealth Use Is Down from Its Peak—But the New Plateau Is Far Higher Than Pre-Pandemic Levels

Patients were more willing to use telehealth than ever in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data from a report published by McKinsey & Company, telehealth claims grew 7,800% between February 2020 and April 2020. They dropped precipitously just a couple of months later, but have since plateaued. What could be of interest to urgent care operators who are considering telehealth as a service option, especially as we’re in the midst of …

Getting Served: The Do’s and Don’ts of Litigation

Upon returning home from a busy urgent care shift, you notice a certified letter with a law firm’s return address. You open the letter and realize you are being sued in the case of a 26-year-old woman you saw almost a year ago. As your heart beats harder, you think about returning to the urgent care to pull up the chart. You wonder who you should call (the medical director, the insurance company…?) Should you …

Meet the New Urgent Care Boss—Not the Same as the Old Boss

Back in the day, you probably would have been right to assume that the closest urgent care center was founded, owned, and run by a physician. Many other practices (primary care, pediatric…) would have been the same. Well, times have changed in a big way. The mavericks who simply wanted to find a better, more sensible way of practicing medicine and wound up creating a new industry are now employees of national and regional health …

What the #$%^ is happening with EM Coding and Reimbursement?! – Part II

In the May issue of JUCM, we outlined what we were seeing with E/M coding levels utilizing the new AMA guidelines vs 2020 and 2019 levels. As COVID-19 visits steadily declined from January through June, we began to see a return to more “normal” urgent care visits. That was short-lived. July’s sharp increase in visit volumes was again driven by COVID-19! Here’s the update we promised. As a reminder, we saw E/M levels decline in …

Credentialing: Why Should I Hire a Professional?

In the words of Red Adair, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” Credentialing dictates how you bill. Do I bill as a group? Should I credential my nonphysician practitioners (NPP)? Which place of service (POS) should I bill with based on my contract? These are all important questions. Did you know that in April of this year, an urgent care chain reached …

An Ominous Trend For Urgent Care

To My Colleagues: I am writing to alert you to an ominous and pernicious trend in our industry that we must collectively address or we will face marginalization or even extinction in the years ahead. This may sound alarmist, but please hear me out. I opened my first clinic in 1987 when “urgent care” was barely a recognized term. I was there when the Urgent Care Association (at that time known as the Urgent Care …

The Nuances of Age Discrimination

Urgent message: As the United States learns to support an aging workforce, understanding the nuances of age discrimination can help urgent care practices to be fair and diverse workplaces that avoid potential legal pitfalls. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Senior Editor, Practice Management of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine and is President of Experity Networks “Lori’s been here since dinosaurs roamed the earth—she’ll know where it’s at.”1 That type of comment may land …

Telemedicine Still Struggles to Catch on in Urgent Care

Some urgent care insiders view telemedicine as a natural fit for our industry—an opportunity to give patients even more convenient access to competent healthcare providers, thereby increasing engagement and resulting in more care for more patients. Others just don’t see how it would be applicable, or fear that remote visits could result in overprescribing (especially for antibiotics and pain medications). Judging from data just released through the Urgent Care Associations 2021 Summer Benchmarking Report, widespread …