Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

New Data Highlight Where Clinicians Can Focus on Controllable Risk Factors

Data published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association point to a need for all clinicians to focus on controllable risk factors for disease and mortality. For urgent care clinicians, that may mean being assertive in probing for patient habits that could be contributing factors related to their presenting to you on a given day. The article points out wide differences in the burden of disease from state to state, attributed to key …

Tread Lightly When Commenting on Other Clinicians’ Capabilities—or Face the Consequences

Honest, respectful feedback can spur subordinates, superiors, and coworkers to do their best work. Comments that could be perceived as overly critical or, especially, bullying are both divisive and potentially harmful to all parties concerned, however. A recent blog post on the website DoctorDiscourse illustrates this in painful detail. It recounts how three physicians at three unrelated facilities lost their jobs or believe they were “blackballed” for seeming to discount the contributions or capabilities of …

Nearly Three Quarters of Clinicians Use Telehealth

Less than 3 years ago, barely more than half of healthcare providers used telemedicine and related services. Today, however, that proportion sits ag 71%, according to two new HIMSS Analytics studies that analyzed inpatient and outpatient telemedicine. The data indicate that “hub-and-spoke” models, in which the flow of care draws patients from lower acuity outpatient settings to larger, more comprehensive facilities, are the most popular, accounting for 59.6% of provider use. (These are more common …

Beware Deceptively ‘Simple’ Diagnoses

A pair of recent news stores add up to a cautionary tale for clinicians inclined to assume ailments commonly identified in the urgent care setting pose no serious threats. One case resulted in the partial amputation of a child’s leg, while the other cost a child her life. In Akron, OH a 6-year-old girl’s strep throat was followed by a flu diagnosis. When her left leg began to swell and she begged her parents not …

Direct Care Supports Scaled Down Operations

As you’ve read here, the spectrum of business models accessible to urgent care operators is constantly expanding. “Direct care,” in which patients pay a monthly fee for a range of basic services, is one that may appeal to operators and clinicians desiring a less-structured approach to running their business—such as getting insurance companies “out of the room,” as explained by Linnea Meyer, MD in an article published in The Wall Street Journal recently. Patients pay …