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 …

Finding Urgent Care (and the Value of Recognizing a Specialty)

I arrived in New Zealand 11 years ago, a doctor without direction and certainly with no inkling of urgent care. I was one of those doctors who had always hoped to find their ultimate career path whilst at university. Alas, whilst I was able to remove some options (here’s looking at you Ob/Gyn) no single specialty sufficiently inspired me to follow that rabbit hole through to its conclusion. So, my medical career began with an …

Can Employers Mandate the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Urgent message: Based on precedent, urgent care operators and other employers can mandate the COVID-19 vaccine when available, subject to reasonable accommodation for exemptions, which are limited when an employee’s role is public- or patient-facing. As we strain our eyes to see the light at the end of the tunnel in this pandemic, many urgent care centers will continue to have front office staff, medical assistants, and providers interacting with the public. In fact, research …

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 …

Looking Forward to 2021

2020 has been a rough year for all of us, and everybody is eagerly awaiting 2021. One thing for urgent care providers to look forward to is simplified documentation standards for evaluation and management guidelines. Current documentation guidelines are over 20 years old. A lot has changed in that time, most importantly the adoption of electronic medical records (EMR). Thus, outdated expectations have created “note bloat,” unnecessary work, and contributed to provider burn out. The …

The Hazards of Independent Contractor/Employee Misclassification

Urgent message: There are serious and costly consequences for misclassifying employees as independent contractors, even if the employee requests or agrees to do so. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Urgent Care. With COVID-19 fears or childcare issues requiring more people to consider home-based employment—and with many companies already conditioned to having employees working remotely—circumstances may arise in which executive or administrative personnel seek job flexibility beyond what’s currently offered …

To Flu or Not to Flu

It’s flu season again and this year patients have two viruses to worry about: COVID-19 and influenza. Now is the time patients will come in to get their flu vaccine and (hopefully) take the flu possibility out of the equation. Vaccinations are usually billed with two CPT codes: one for the vaccine and one for the administration of the vaccine. If the practice did not pay for the vaccine, only the CPT code for the …

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, …

Does the OSHA General Duty Clause Encompass Psychological or Emotional Injury?

Urgent message: Despite tort law and emerging workplace policies validating how sexual harassment, workplace bullying, and toxic gossip can lead to emotional and psychological harm, currently the OSHA General Duty Clause imposes a responsibility only for employers to provide a workplace free of “death and serious physical injury.” Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc The OSHA General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act,1 states that an employer must provide each of …

What’s New for ICD-10 in 2021?

It’s that time of year again. On October 1, 2020, the annual update to ICD-10 codes goes into effective. Just a reminder—there is no grace period. Use of deleted or invalid diagnosis codes will result in claim denial and delay payment. The ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting FY 2021 (October 1, 2020 – September 30, 2021) have also been updated. These are provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the …