Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Injection Procedures and E/M Codes

DAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Q.Can we bill an evaluation and management code along with the code for administration of an intravenous injection? A.Although it may seem obvious to expect reimbursement in these situations, Medicare waited until 2006 to begin reimbursing physicians for a separate E/M (99201- 99205, 99212-99215) when performed at the same time as IV drug administration. The Medicare Claims Processing Manual states, “Medicare will pay for medically necessary office/outpatient visits billed on …

Addressing the Data Drought

Urgent message: The second UCA Benchmarking Survey takes one small step toward filling the information gap in urgent care medicine. Introduction: Although the practice of urgent care medicine is not a new phenomenon, there is a significant absence of reliable information about the industry. One first step toward filling that void was initiated last year when the Urgent Care Association’s Benchmarking Committee released the results of its first-ever benchmarking survey of UCA members and others …

Using Education as an Occupational Health Marketing Tool

As marketing initiatives become increasingly self-serving, it behooves an urgent care clinic to differentiate itself by “playing the education card.” Why Education? Many employer decision-makers are still strikingly naïve about the value of a well-integrated, proactive approach to their company’s health and safety activities. Educational information does not come off as self-serving and is perceived as a “kinder and gentler” form of marketing. In our information-saturated world, it is imperative to find a way to …

Vicarious Liability

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP It’s 8:15 on Sunday morning. This is the first morning you have actually been able to sleep in since you opened the urgent care center five months ago. Truth be told, you drank a glass (or two) of wine too many last night and are still feeling the effects this morning. However, you don’t care; you have the day off and you can slouch around till noon and no …

Developing Data: June, 2007

UCA’s Survey Committee has conducted two annual member surveys, to date, designed to establish benchmarks in an industry for which data have been sorely lacking. Each month in Developing Data, we will share one or two tidbits from the second annual survey in an effort to help readers get a sense of what their peers are doing, and what kind of trends are developing as urgent care evolves. In this issue: If you’re planning to …

Additional Income from After-Hours Codes (99050, 99051, 99053)

DAVID STERN, MD (Practice Velocity) Q.A patient with a finger laceration walked into our urgent care center at 8:05 p.m., five minutes after our closing time. Rather than turn the patient away, our team decided to care for the patient. Three of our staff, including the physician, stayed for 50 minutes after our posted closing time. If we had not stayed after our scheduled closing time, the patient would have been forced to go to …

Overview of a Malpractice Trial (and How to Survive)

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP It’s game day. The trial begins today and your fate will be decided by a jury of your “peers.” Never mind the fact that none of them are physicians, only three have been to college, and two did not even graduate from high school; in the eyes of the law, they are your peers and will be the ones to decide if your care met the standard of care. …

Return-on-Investment in Occupational Health Sales

FRANK H. LEONE, MBA, MPH It began with two cavemen, or even before: Bartering. Fair trade. A transaction where both parties (theoretically) walk away satisfied that they got a positive return on their exchange. This concept persists to this very day. At a minimum, your urgent care clinic should understand return-on-investment (ROI) for two occupational health staples: work injury management and pre-placement physical examinations. Work Injury Management Employers need to get workers back to work …

Are DNA Relationship Testing Services a Good Match for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: The last 10 years have seen a dramatic increase in DNA parentage testing. Yet, the DNA testing industry remains, in essence, unregulated. Can urgent care providers fulfill a need for ethical and clinically reliable access, while receiving direct and immediate payment for your services? Elizabeth Panke, MD, PhD For many generations, defining the parent-child relationship was easy. The woman who gave birth to the child was the child’s legal mother; to a large …

Quality of Care

KENNETH V. ISERSON, MD, MBA, FAAEM, FACEP “Quality of care,” due to both its nebulous nature and its vital importance, has always been a much-discussed issue in medical ethics. For example, the Codes of Hammurabi, the Hippocratic writings, and other early medical treatises discuss quality of care. Today, the changing goals and priorities within healthcare systems and the ongoing attempts to restructure local, state, and national health treatment delivery systems have increased the importance of …