Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

From ZoomCare to ZOOM+: What Can Urgent Care Learn?

Urgent message: ZoomCare, which operates 28 walk-in clinics in the Pacific Northwest, has long been a technological innovator, launching web registration, scheduling, and telemedicine in its markets. In the past year, ZoomCare has evolved further to create ZOOM+, integrating urgent care with insurance, primary care, wellness, specialists, and ancillary services. As ZOOM+ redefines the future of urgent care around the needs of its community, there is much that other urgent care operators can learn in attaining revenue growth from a maturing …

Projected Volume of Prescriptions

Data from the 2014 Urgent Care Chart Survey of 1,778,075 blinded visits by patients to more than 800 different urgent care clinics, conducted by the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, reveal that for 2014, the top three medication classes by volume projected to be prescribed at U.S. urgent care centers were, in descending order: Oral antibiotics, 72.9 million Corticosteroids, 20.5 million Narcotic analgesics, 14.9 million The survey’s methodology and data abstraction forms were initially designed …

Same or Similar Diagnoses for Follow-Up Visits

Q. Is there a global period for the diagnosis used for follow-up on an evaluation and management (E/M) code when there is not a change in the chief symptom? We had a patient with a skin irritation for which the provider prescribed a hydrocortisone cream for the diagnosis of “dermatitis, unspecified” (L30.9). The provider instructed the patient to return in 1 week if the condition did not clear up. The patient returned 3 days later …

The Importance of Having a Solid Job Description for Every Position in the Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: Having concise, complete, and up-to-date job descriptions for all employees in an urgent care center will pay off with better role performance, fewer employment disputes, and hopefully the elimination of the possibility of legal action. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity Between 2012 and 2022, according to the U.S. Economic Census, health-care employment is expected to increase by 2.6% annually—or by 5 million jobs. This rate is approximately five times that projected for …

Janitorial and Maintenance Roundtable: Best Practices for Managing Environmental Services

Urgent message: Every urgent care center must have a plan to clean and maintain its physical facility. In this JUCM-exclusive panel discussion, industry leaders share their insights on selecting an environmental services contractor, negotiating pricing, and maintaining service levels. Urgent care is often considered a blind product because patients generally lack the formal training necessary to assess the quality of the actual medical services delivered. As a result, satisfaction or dissatisfaction is determined in large …

The ‘Educate and Vaccinate’ Angle Could Boost Occ Med Business in Flu Season

Local business owners should be made aware that occupational medicine providers may be able to prevent more than the flu this season. With more than 11 million workdays—and $7 billion—lost annually to the flu according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, healthy employees mean a healthy bottom line in very real terms. Small businesses, especially those engaged in manufacturing where having a worker down with the flu could significantly diminish production for days …

After Signing the Lease: Ensuring a Successful Build-Out of Your Urgent Care Center

Urgent message: This exclusive interview with Brent Johnson, Vice President of Midland General Contractors, focuses on dealing with general contractors, time lines, the permit process, build-out costs, and common pitfalls when setting up a new urgent care center. Introduction “Location, location, location” has long been the success mantra of the retail and service industries. Because urgent care centers are a consumer-facing delivery channel for health care, location is also a key success determinant in that field. High traffic counts, good signage visibility, high …

Legal Implications of Integration of Hospitals and Urgent Care Centers

Ron Lebow, JD Urgent message: As health systems and payors align their interests in the creation of accountable care organizations, hospitals that acquire or partner with urgent care centers must adopt a legal structure and an operating model that remain compliant with the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the federal Stark law, and with other federal and state regulations. Introduction With the advent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the government recognized that …

Unspecified Diagnosis Codes, Preoperative Examinations, and Tuberculosis Skin Tests

Q. We are afraid of getting denials for using unspecified ICD-10-CM [International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification] codes. In an urgent care center, we sometimes will see a particular patient only one time for minor illnesses and injuries, and follow-up with their primary-care physician is always advised. Do you have any advice on documenting to get claims paid? A. Within ICD-10-CM, you may select codes defined as “Not Otherwise Specified” (NOS). Generally, this should …

The Most Frequent Disposition of Cases at U.S. Urgent Care Centers in 2014

Data from the 2014 Urgent Care Chart Survey of 1,778,075 blinded visits by patients to more than 800 different urgent care clinics, conducted by the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine, reveal that the most frequent disposition of cases at U.S. urgent care centers in 2014 was provision of follow-up care as needed. The survey’s methodology and data abstraction forms were initially designed in 2008 by researcher Robin M. Weinick, PhD, then an assistant professor at …