Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

How to Hire Your Next Urgent Care Manager

Urgent message: Urgent care centers need engaged and effective operations leadership, which entails clearly defining managerial roles, individual skillsets and personality characteristics and also having a process for attracting, interviewing, and qualifying managerial candidates. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Experity and is Practice Management Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. Jim Clifton, the highly respected CEO of global performance and research leader Gallup, has often stated …

When to Fight a Claim for Unemployment

Urgent message: While unemployment insurance claims can cost an urgent care center through higher future premiums, there are multiple considerations for when a center should contest or approve an unemployment claim. Urgent care centers, as service businesses, frequently experience a high rate of turnover among their less skilled, frontline staff—eg, receptionists, clerks, and medical assistants. Whether an employee quits or is terminated for cause or performance, a common issue for urgent care center owners is …

Can Your Employees Really Speak Freely?

The following is a summary of an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review. It explores how, in many organizations, leaders who attempt to elicit honest employee feedback often fail in their attempts to create meaningful dialogue. Urgent care providers must realize they have an important stake in this issue, as research shows when employees can voice their concerns freely, organizations see increased retention and stronger performance. Most leaders will declare that they have …

Competitive Edge: The Importance of Taking Accurate Vitals

Urgent message: Recording thorough and accurate vital signs supports the urgent care physician in asking the right questions of the patient’s history of present illness, guides the physician in the physical exam, and thus is essential in reaching an accurate diagnosis and devising an effective treatment plan. Imagine you are a medical assistant on duty in a busy urgent care center. A patient walks in, and you check him in. You ask his height and …

Should an Urgent Care Operator Check the National Sex Offender Registry When Hiring Employees?

Urgent message: Failure to identify risks in a new hire’s background can result in “negligent hiring” liability for an urgent care operator, but there are also limitations in what information a center can seek on an applicant. The approximately 7,100 urgent care centers in the United States employ physicians, NPs, PAs, RNs, medical assistants, technicians, and receptionists who provide walk-in patients with medical care for minor health conditions without an appointment. Most urgent care centers …

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 …

Membership Has Its Privileges—Affordable, Quality Care Being One

CareNow, a division of Hospital Corporation of America operating 26 centers in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, has a membership program for patients without insurance. It appeals particularly to patients with high-deductible health plans who will be responsible, out of pocket, for the costs of their urgent care visits and thus choose to not use their insurance. CareNow charges $18/month for the membership and $68 for sick visits with the membership. Complex procedures, such as incision & …

How Blogging Can Drive SEO for Your Urgent Care Facility

Urgent Message: Blogging is a relatively simple, inexpensive, and completely customized marketing tool too often underutilized by urgent care operators. Employed correctly, however, it can help search engines deliver potential patients to your website at any time of day or night. These days, it doesn’t matter if a patient is trying to find a nearby urgent care facility or research a medical condition to determine if they need medical attention. They won’t be looking in …

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 …

How to Cope with a Difficult Boss

Urgent message: When employees in an urgent care center encounter a physician or administrator who is challenging to work for, there are often steps they can take to avoid having to choose between their job and their sense of wellbeing. In today’s busy work environment, we interact with dozens of people every day, and sometimes challenging individuals go with the territory. Nevertheless, coping with a troublesome boss is overwhelming, and studies have shown that …