Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Why is the Waiting Room Still Empty? Perspectives from a Pediatric Urgent Care Physician

In February 2020, the first U.S. case of community spread COVID-19 was identified at a pediatric urgent care center in Seattle, reinforcing the fact that UC is on the frontlines of healthcare. Between March and May 2020, the majority of healthcare services saw a significant downturn in volumes as patients quarantined and businesses shutdown. But as the number of domestic COVID-19 cases increased, many general urgent care centers saw unprecedented volume surges that continued throughout …

New Technical Corrections Issued by the AMA Explained

On March 9, 2021, the American Medical Association updated the new evaluation and management (E/M) coding guidelines with technical corrections. These clarifications apply to the office visit codes 99202–99215 and are retroactive to January 1, 2021. In the past few months there has been industry confusion over whether a test can be counted under the data element for the E/M level when the practice is also billing for the test. The AMA has answered this …

Do Respiratory Outpatient Clinics Decrease Bronchiolitis Reevaluation Rates? Observational Data from a Quality Improvement Project

Urgent message: Establishing respiratory outpatient clinics has been shown to decrease reevaluation rates for patients with bronchiolitis, especially in children aged <12 months and/or those who receive suctioning during their initial urgent care encounter. Prema D. Souza, MD; Aimy Patel, MD; Brian Lee, PhD; and Amanda Nedved, MD Citation: Souza PD, Patel A, Lee B, Nedved A. Do Respiratory Outpatient Clinics Decrease Bronchiolitis Reevaluation Rates? Observational Data for a Quality Improvement Project. J Urgent Care …

Seven Digital Marketing Tactics for Every Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: Urgent care operators are spending an increasing amount of their marketing budget on seven digital tactics. Fortunately for those working in healthcare, there will never be a shortage of patients. People will always come down with illnesses, and minor injuries won’t go away anytime soon. That being said, it can still be difficult to get people in the door of your specific urgent care center. Although it often gets neglected, proper marketing is …

More and More, Urgent Care Is a One-Stop Destination

It’s not uncommon for the uninitiated to view urgent care as just the first, most convenient stop in what may be a two- or three-stop odyssey to resolve an immediate healthcare need. That could take all day and wind up being very expensive. Those in the know—certainly urgent care providers, operators, and experienced patients—understand that a trip to the urgent care center is often all a patient needs to get the right level of …

Credentialing and Contracting: What to Expect When Expanding

For those trying to grow their urgent care business, conversations around payer contracting and credentialing (CC) can often be overwhelming and seem contradictory to the mission of On-Demand Care. Tammy Mallow, our resident Experity advisor on all things CC says she often finds herself being the perceived as a “dream killer” when educating owners to the inner workings of this process. Established groups often expect the payer rules to be the same as they were …

Pitfalls of Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS)—A Perspective

Urgent message: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is well established as an imaging tool in the urgent care center. Although it is generally considered safe and easy to use, safety and hygiene considerations are frequently ignored—possibly leaving patients at risk for infection and excessive radiation exposure. Avijit Barai MBBS, MRCS, MSc, PgCertCPU, FRNZCUC; Martin Necas, MMedSonography, AMS, RDMS, MRT, RVT; and Bruce Lambie, MBBS, FACEM INTRODUCTION Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is well established as an imaging tool in …

Are There Any Restrictions on an Urgent Care Provider Charging a No-Show or Cancellation Fee?

Urgent message: When holding a time slot that could go to another paying customer, it’s common for service businesses to charge no-show or cancellation fees. With many urgent care centers moving to online registration and queuing systems, could this be a solution for maximizing throughput in urgent care as well? Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Networks and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Please provide at …

Is Specialization the Future of Urgent Care?

Urgent care has historically been viewed as a setting where patients could present with anything short of life- or limb-threatening complaints (though even those parameters have been stretched in dire situations.) And that identity has served the industry well, as evidenced by nearly constant growth over several decades. As time wore on, though, it became evident that there are business opportunities to be had by addressing niches with special needs. Occupational medicine is a prime …

Last Minute Coding Changes for 2021

December brought us some last-minute coding changes. In some cases, this caused a small claim delay as clearinghouses and payers scrambled to update their systems. New ICD-10 Codes for COVID-19 Effective January 1, 2021, there are new ICD-10 codes for reporting COVID-19 related diagnoses. These codes replace the existing codes we are using that are not as specific. There are two other new codes: 81 (Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS)); and 89 (Other specified systemic involvement …