Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Telemedicine’s Impact on Urgent Care: What You Need to Know

Urgent message: Telemedicine represents a new growth opportunity for urgent care centers that want to attract consumers looking for on-demand medicine. IAN VASQUEZ, MBA Urgent care providers are well positioned to take advantage of new market opportunities being driven by consumers and employers who increasingly look to the Internet for on-demand medicine. Telemedicine represents one such opportunity. This article will help you understand applications of telemedicine to urgent care and assess key risks and benefits …

Workplace Bullying and its Costs to the Urgent Care Operation

Urgent message: More than one third of U.S. employees say they have been bullied in the workplace. Does your practice have a policy in place to thwart this insidious problem? If not, it should. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MACC What is the Difference Between Diversity and Tolerance? According to one definition, diversity is anything that makes you different while tolerance is not persecuting people who are different. Many urgent care operations strive for a unified …

Buy or Lease Your Next Urgent Care Site?

Urgent message: After location, how to pay for an urgent care site is crucial to your success. Here’s how to think it through. MICHAEL ZELNIK, CCIM Once you’ve found the right location for your next urgent care (see An Urgent Care Site That Maximizes Revenue, JUCM, September 2011), your focus can turn to analyzing the risks and benefits of leasing or purchasing property in the trade area you’ve identified. This analysis should be more than …

Telephone Interpreting: Improving Healthcare Outcomes and the Bottom Line

Urgent message: Using interpreters in the urgent care setting can help you provide quality healthcare and save time and money. Bruce Merley Imagine that it is late Friday night and you and a nurse are the last remaining staff on duty at your urgent care center. A couple arrives and the woman appears to have several facial cuts and bruises. When you greet them, the man responds in a language you do not understand. You …

Technology in Urgent Care: Digital or Conventional Imaging?

Urgent message: More and more urgent care clinics are wrestling with whether to offer digital or conventional x-rays. In this article, Registered Technologist Trip Hale offers expert advice on how to make the decision. Trip Hale, RT, (R) Introduction For today’s urgent care clinics, imaging is an internal part of providing complete diagnostic and treatment services. Because reimbursement for diagnostic studies is lower for physician-owned than for hospital or outpatient imaging facilities, a well-planned and …

Motivate Your Front-Line Staff With Enlightened Leadership

Urgent message: Registration specialists, medical assistants, and techs may be your lowest-paid employees, but the success of your urgent care is in their hands—and their success is in yours. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MAcc, Experity Urgent care is a service business whose long-term viability depends on patient loyalty and word of mouth. That’s why urgent care entrepreneurs spend tens of thousands of dollars in selecting the right locations, equipping them with the latest technology, and …

An Urgent Care Lab as a Profit Center?

Urgent message: An onsite lab can generate significant revenue for your practice. Lab expert Tim Dumas shows how. TIM DUMAS, MLT,CLS Introduction I have been a lab tech for almost 35 years and serve as advisor to 45 physician office labs around the country. I have seen many changes in that time, most for the better. Thirty—even 20—years ago, a stat CBC with differential was a 15-minute-procedure and required a skilled lab tech to get …

A Better Way to Settle Malpractice Suits?

Urgent message: Mediation could produce better outcomes than litigation for patients and physicians—if doctors would only show up. CAROL B. LIEBMAN, JD Introduction A stomach pain is misdiagnosed as viral gastroenteritis. The patient ends up in the hospital for six days with complications from a ruptured appendix. A physician prescribes penicillin to a woman with clearly documented allergies, which leads to anaphylaxis and a day in the ICU. A severe headache is labeled a migraine; …

Take Patient Satisfaction to the Next Level

Urgent message: Companies like Apple and Nordstrom have raised the quality of customer experience to an art form, one that urgent cares would do well to emulate. ALAN A. AYERS, MBA, MACC, Experity Introduction Urgent care is positioned as a consumer-focused delivery channel for low-acuity medical services differentiated from hospital emergency departments and primary care practices by retail-facing locations, extended evening and weekend hours, and walk-in convenience. As with airlines, restaurants, and other service businesses, …

Planning for Meaningful Use? The Clock Is Ticking

Urgent message: CMS offers stimulus funds to providers who “attest” that their EHR use improves patient care: up to $18,000 in 2011 alone. The sooner you do, the more you stand to earn. ERIC McDONALD “Meaningful use” refers to the use of a “certified” electronic health record (EHR) to meet specific objectives established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers the EHR incentive program. An EHR is certified when it demonstrates …