Practice Management
Urgent message: Urgent care operators must be mindful of costs and labor efficiency to navigate the challenges of rising and falling revenue in what’s been a highly seasonal business. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, is President of Experity Consulting and is Senior Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. For much of 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic drove both uncertainty and higher volumes (and thus profits) to urgent care centers. With the 2022-2023 …
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Eric Ellis, MD Something is amiss in how smaller urgent care operators are reimbursed these days. This, likely, is not news to you and I’m sure my situation is not unique, but in the process of having opened a group of urgent care centers around Sacramento, CA over the past few years, I’ve been shocked about just how bad things are. When we opened our first center, I used a management company to help with …
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Denials and rejections are inevitable in medical billing and can have drastic repercussions on the overall profit of an urgent care practice. Studies show almost 30% of medical bills are prone to errors. Avoid these common mistakes to improve the return on your investment. Eligibility Errors Avoidable eligibility errors are the biggest issue in urgent care billing. Over one-third of total visits with a rejection or denial are due to a lack of proper registration …
Read MoreThere’s been a bit of discussion in the urgent care industry (including in JUCM articles of late) concerning a perceived degradation of acuity in urgent care practice. The worry is that in the service of getting a maximum number of patients in and out the door quickly, some patients with more than minimally complicated complaints are advised to visit the closest emergency room when they could just as safely (and more cost-effectively) be treated in …
Read MoreHeather Real With today’s urgent care operators challenged with increasing expenses and stagnant reimbursements, many thoughtful entrepreneurs turn to ancillary services to drive more revenue into their business. These offerings are numerous and varying in nature. When determining if and what to add to an urgent care business, you’ll need to ask some crucial questions: As the competition for patient loyalty heats up, many operators are looking for ways to stand out. Some ways of …
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Urgent message: Urgent care operators of all sizes are poised for continued growth in 2023. In this post-COVID environment, look to shifting de novo ownership trends, a slowing of health system activity, and independent entrepreneurs regaining their courage as the driving factors. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer the primary driver of decision-making for urgent care operators. While its impact over the past few years cannot be understated, other factors …
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As noted in this month’s cover article (Human Trafficking in the Urgent Care Setting: Recognizing and Referring Vulnerable Patients), isolation is one of many tools perpetrators use to control victims of human trafficking. Certainly this includes limiting access to healthcare. Not surprisingly, when care is necessary it’s not likely to be sought in a primary care office. Rather, busy acute care sites that offer walk-in access and relative anonymity tend to be preferred—with urgent care …
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Monte Sandler Insurance plans are scrutinizing claims more than ever before. Common questions from our clients are: What does this mean? What should I do? Should I be worried? Generally, there are three types of payer reviews: prepayment, postpayment, and probe. The first step is to figure out what type of review it is. What you do and how you handle the review is dependent on that information. Should you be concerned? Always. Payer reviews …
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Urgent message: While the term “triage” refers to one distinct step in emergency department throughput, in urgent care the concept encompasses a series of activities that span queuing, registering, intake, and the physical exam. Given the clinical and legal implications of the term, including who legally can triage, the term should be avoided in most urgent care settings. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc According to modern dictionaries, triage refers to the “assignment of degrees of …
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Guy Melrose, MB, ChB It was with great interest that I read Dr. Joshua Russell’s opinions on the value of repeating vital signs in the urgent care setting in the November 2022 issue of JUCM.1 Having stated that this does not seem to be common practice amongst his peers, he went on to highlight a couple of very reasonable scenarios in which he recommended repeating vital recordings. Importantly, he alluded to the often-underappreciated phenomenon of …
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