Practice Management
Insurers and other parties who hold a stake in the economics of urgent care tend to respond to cold hard data. Here’s some: Seven of the top 10 reasons patients sought care in a freestanding emergency room in 2014 could have been treated safely—but much less expensively—in an urgent care center, according to a new study by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). Take sore throat, which topped the list of reasons …
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Colorado is considering legislation that would require freestanding emergency rooms to post notices throughout the building alerting patients that they have stepped into an emergency room, where they will be afforded emergency care for emergent medical conditions (and pay emergency-level charges). The bill was inspired by complaints from consumers who have mistakenly sought care in freestanding ERs, thinking they had gone to an urgent care center—where costs are lower and more likely to be covered …
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