Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Come the New Year, DOT Needs You to Test for Opioids

The Federal Department of Transportation (DOT) is getting with the times and adding opioid screens to its drug testing program. Specifically, providers who conduct physicals and assessments for the DOT will have to include hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, and oxycodone in their screens as of January 1, 2018. In addition, methylenedioxyamphetamine has been added as an initial test analyte, and methylenedioxyethylamphetamine has been removed as a confirmatory test analyte. Adding the four semisynthetic opioids has been …

Don’t Be Too Quick to Blame Doctors for the Opioid Crisis

Physicians, including urgent care providers, may be taking more than their share of the blame for the ongoing opioid crisis in the U.S., according to a report by The New York Times and ProPublica. While some public officials and media outlets have accused doctors of, essentially, enabling opioid addiction by prescribing narcotic pain medications too liberally, data show that prices set by insurers may be steering doctors and patients alike away from less-addictive alternatives. Opioid …

Potentially Avoidable ED Visits Cost Over $1.3 Billion—in New York Alone

If just 10 common, low-acuity conditions had been treated somewhere other than the emergency room, the health system in New York could have saved $1.3 billion, according to state Department of Health claims data analyzed by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. That analysis takes into account 6.4 million ED visits—more than 2 million of which were deemed suitable for treatment in an urgent care center, primary care office, or via telemedicine—for “bumps and bruises,” joint aches, ear …