Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Patients Confused by ‘Urgent Care’ Label on Hospital EDs

How free-standing emergency departments (EDs) present themselves to the community continues to cause confusion for patients, ultimately leading to unexpectedly higher medical bills and negative overall experiences. Some free-standing EDs have the term “urgent care” in their name, which many believe is misleading. And now there is at least one effort to investigate a class action lawsuit for patients who accessed what they believed was urgent care—based on the facility’s sign out front—only to find …

New Data Show Same Diagnoses, Higher Costs at Freestanding EDs vs Urgent Care

Despite a growing stack of negative press clippings and legislative scrutiny, freestanding emergency rooms continue to take in patients off the street and charge them far more than they’d pay for the same services at urgent care centers. New data from four institutions in Texas reveal that mean out-of-pocket spending jumped 66% between 2012 and 2015 in the Lone Star State. Out-of-pocket costs grew by 38.5% at hospital-based EDs and by just 8.9% at urgent …