Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

COVID-19 Has Had a Strong Impact on Pediatric Presentations—Well Beyond the Virus Itself

The effects of SARS-CoV-2 itself on various populations in the United States and internationally have been well-documented. Likewise, an ever-growing number of studies have measured the effects of the pandemic on healthcare, the workforce, children’s education…and on and on. One fact that has been largely overlooked: While social distancing and mask mandates helped reduce spread of COVID-19, with the unintended benefit of reducing the number of cases of other infectious diseases, they did nothing …

2023 Trends for Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Five trends will drive urgent care strategy in 2023, including its continued response to COVID-19, building bridges with the pediatric community, integration of urgent and primary care, integration of specialist services, and increased operational efficiency in response to staffing challenges. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Consulting and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. As we embark upon 2023, year of the “rabbit” in the …

Yes, You Can Remove Corneal Foreign Bodies and Rust Rings in Urgent Care

John J. Koehler MD, ABPM(OM) I trained in Emergency Medicine in the 1980s and learned to use a slit lamp as an intern; it’s a skill that continues to serve me to this day. We had “opti-spuds” to remove foreign bodies and “opti-burrs” to debride rust rings. This was considered a core skill in my training. This is why, when I started Physicians Immediate Care in 1987, I bought a slit lamp as well as …

Evolution of the Urgent Care Staffing Model During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected urgent care practices deeply, beyond what you already know firsthand. In addition to fluctuations in patient visits, efforts to keep staff safe, and reorganizing locations to meet whatever need was greatest at a given moment, the “typical” urgent care staffing model evolved at an accelerated pace between 2019 and today. The proportion of centers in which physician assistants and nurse practitioners treat patients with only remote …

Benefits of Utilizing Limited-Scope X-Ray Techs in the Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: X-ray is an essential component of urgent care operations. Amid rising costs and staffing shortages, limited-scope x-ray techs may be a viable alternative to licensed radiology techs to perform imaging in the clinic. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc One of the unexpected changes we’ve seen come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is the difficulty urgent care centers face in hiring licensed radiologic technologists (RTs). Even hospitals struggle to hire, offering sign-on bonuses of …

How Urgent Care Can Address Its Degrading Scope of Practice

Urgent message: Founded by emergency medicine doctors on a mission to keep nonemergent patients out of the ED, urgent care has been forced by changes in reimbursement policies to emphasize high productivity and labor cost savings—ultimately leading to overall fewer procedures and thus a lower acuity level for urgent care centers. Benjamin Barlow, MD; Monte Sandler; Alan Ayers, MBA, MAcc The urgent care community has faced many challenges over the past several years. The largest …

STIs Are Epidemic in the U.S.—but How Many of Those Patients Are Going to Urgent Care?

If you read this issue’s cover article on how important urgent care is in fighting the current surge of sexually transmitted infections in the United States, you know that we are in the midst of an STI epidemic. (And if you didn’t read it, you should turn to page X to do so after you’re done here.) Sure, there have been demographic shifts in healthcare preferences; more Americans than ever (especially in the younger …

Urgent Care Is Correcting Course on Antibiotic Prescribing

Just 4 years ago, a Research Letter published by JAMA Internal Medicine painted an unflattering picture of the antibiotic prescribing habits in U.S. physician offices, urgent care centers, retail clinics, and emergency rooms.1 Urgent care took its lumps along with other settings—but in response, collectively, also took the issue seriously and set to work on correcting course. In introducing their Antibiotic Stewardship program, The Urgent Care Association and the College of Urgent Care Medicine noted …

Who Can Take X-Rays in an Urgent Care Center?

Urgent message: Given that x-ray is a differentiating feature of “urgent care” and the current challenges in recruiting and retaining licensed RTs, a logical question for urgent care operators is the extent to which x-ray tasks can be delegated. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is President of Experity Consulting and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. “The only people who can touch an x-ray machine are those who are certified …

Where Do You Start When Starting Your Urgent Care?

Heather Real There are many reasons to start your own urgent care, whether it be feeding your entrepreneurial spirit, investing in an industry that has proven to be stable and growing (even amidst multiple economic crises in the last three decades), or responding to the needs of a community. For many, the reasons include at least some of these, and more. Realizing the desire to take on this project is the first step; however, there …