Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

The Top 10 Mistakes Hospitals Make in the Urgent Care Business

Introduction It should not be surprising that when hospital executives and personnel sit down to discuss issues and problems around population health, accountable care organization (ACO) integration, network development, cost containment, new product lines, hospital readmission rates, care coordination, and related topics they often arrive at hospital-centric and hospital-based solutions to solve them.1 As hospitals and hospital networks look to urgent care centers to address some of these issues through hospital/urgent care affiliations, joint ventures, …

Who’s the Boss? The Organizational Impact of Bypassing the Chain of Command

Urgent message: A chain of command exists in most organizations to assure efficient and accurate communication, orderly and organized business operations, and proper allocation of time and resources. When the chain of command is broken, however, the entire business can suffer. In American business culture, organizations are typically built in a hierarchal structure and follow an established chain of command. To ensure smooth and efficient operations, employees are generally expected to communicate work issues to …

Enhancing Urgent Care Profits with Travel Medicine

Urgent message: Travel medicine is a service addition that enables urgent care operators to attract more patients and increase revenue from existing patients while leveraging existing infrastructure and personnel. When an urgent care center’s patient revenues exceed operating expenses, the operation is said to have achieved break-even profitability—at which point each incremental patient visit contributes directly to the bottom line. Nevertheless, in the face of rising fixed costs and falling payer reimbursements, many centers still …

Cost-Effective Staffing with Medical Assistants

Urgent message: Medical assistants (MAs) provide flexible, cost-effective clinical support for urgent care centers. With proper training and working under a physician’s supervision, an MA can perform most basic support functions in this setting. Introduction While there’s a lack of verifiable data as to the total number of unsuccessful urgent care endeavors, we can presume at least one common reason urgent care centers shutter their doors and permanently cease operations: they exhaust their working capital. …

Understanding the Impacts of Health-Care Reform on Urgent Care

Urgent message: Urgent care plays a vital role in reducing medical expenses and improving population health by enabling the right care, at the right place, by the right provider, at the right price. Introduction Health-care reform, quality of care, and costs are center stage topics for politicians and the general public. As medical providers and administrators in the United States, we share in the challenge of understanding this complex system. Whereas traditional approaches in the …

The Rise of Medical Scribes: A Fit for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: As urgent care operators look for ways to speed patient flow and raise visit revenue, medical scribes may be a solution for increasing provider efficiency and improving documentation accuracy. How this article helps you: provides information useful in deciding whether your center would benefit from hiring scribes. Introduction Urgent care is unique among health-care delivery models in its focus on providing quick turnaround. To get patients in and out of the center in …

Using Key Performance Indicators to Measure, Track, and Improve Performance in Urgent Care

Urgent message: Key performance indicators provide the yardstick by which urgent care strategy and execution are tracked over time, highlighting areas requiring management intervention, facilitating comparison with peers, and enabling a culture of continual improvement. Introduction Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable business metrics used by organizations to gauge various aspects of their performance over time. Regular monitoring and evaluation of KPIs help provide insight into an organization’s financial health and spotlight organizational strengths and weaknesses. KPIs are also used to set strategic and …

Joint Ventures Between Health Systems and Urgent Care: Achieving the Best of Both Worlds

Urgent message: As hospitals and health systems develop and grow +their urgent care footprints, many leverage the expertise and experience of outside partners. Five common affiliation models fit differing strategic objectives and distinct market conditions. As the number of urgent care centers increases across the United States, so too do the variety of urgent care center models and the ways in which urgent care centers seek to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Gone are the …