Practice Management
Urgent message: Appropriate attention to place, product, price, promotion, people, and quality help ensure the right approach to facilitating the success of your practice. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity Bartenders in British pubs have a custom of reminding eager patrons to “mind their Ps and Qs”—to watch how many pints and quarts they consume, so as to avoid creating a tab they cannot pay. To assure a satisfactory return on their investment, urgent care …
Read MoreAs an emerging distinct practice environment, urgent care is in the early stages of building a data set specific to its norms and practices. In Developing Data, JUCM will offer results not only from UCA’s annual benchmarking surveys, but also from research conducted elsewhere to present an expansive view of the healthcare marketplace in which urgent care seeks to strengthen its presence. In this issue: Among patients visiting emergency rooms in the U.S., how is …
Read MoreDAVID STERN, MD (Experity) Q.I can’t find any documentation that tells us specifically how we should code when a provider tries to remove a foreign body, but is not successful and decides that the patient should go to the ER. Do we just code for an office visit or do we also code for the removal of the foreign body since the provider did try, albeit unsuccessfully, and decided the patient needed to be seen …
Read MoreInviting would-be employer clients to visit your urgent care clinic is an increasingly common and effective marketing tool. Yet, most such visits are done with insufficient forethought. The majority of occupational health closes are “soft” commitments—that is, there is no guarantee that the prospect will use your urgent care clinic. Hence, some type of follow-up to most sales calls is advisable. Further, it is best to actually involve the prospect in some manner, as prospect …
Read MoreJOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP In the movie There Will be Blood, character Henry Brands says, “That part of me is gone…working and not succeeding—all my failures has [sic] left me….I just don’t… care.” At the end, after the struggles, “I don’t care” is a common aphorism of the wanton entrepreneur. Maybe it is uttered during the futile death throes of the dying business. Or, maybe after leaving the bank president’s office. I suppose …
Read MoreAs an emerging distinct practice environment, urgent care is in the early stages of building a data set specific to its norms and practices. In Developing Data, JUCM will offer results not only from UCA’s annual benchmarking surveys, but also from research conducted elsewhere to present an expansive view of the healthcare marketplace in which urgent care seeks to strengthen its presence. In this issue: What trend is emerging in how participating urgent care practices …
Read MoreDAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Q.Our urgent care practice serves a 70-physician primary care group. The UC uses the three-year rule; if the patient has been seen by any physician in the medical group within the last three years, he/she is an established patient even if the patient has never been previously seen in the urgent care. A comparable UC center in a nearby city applies the three-year rule differently; if the patient has been …
Read MoreDo you hire an experienced salesperson and train him or her in occupational health, or hire an occupational health professional and train that person in sales? The former brings sales experience but needs to learn the “product;” the latter brings product knowledge but needs to learn fundamental sales skills. Given this choice, my answer is the former. It is easier to train an experienced salesperson in product knowledge than vice versa. However, there are numerous …
Read MoreJOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP The moment is forever etched in my mind. It occurred while I was in my fourth year of medical school during a radiology rotation in Scottsdale, AZ. I was doing everything I could not to fall asleep while sitting in the dark film-reading room, listening to a tonally flat radiologist dictate plain film reports. I got up to splash some cold water on my face and as I was …
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Urgent message: The financial health of your practice depends on a balanced approach that takes into account both increasing income and reducing expenses. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity From an economic perspective, the independent urgent care owner/operator has a dual goal: to build the long-term value of the medical practice while maximizing cash that can be taken out of the business in the form of income. To achieve both of these goals—to expand revenues …
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