Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Creating a Health Surveillance Product Line

Urgent message: Keeping patients able to perform their jobs is critical to the success of an urgent care occupational medicine program. Donna Lee Gardner, RN, MS, MBA To best meet the needs of employers, an urgent care occupational medicine (UCOM) clinic should feature five basic product lines: • health surveillance • injury/loss management • rehabilitation • prevention services • on-site services This article will address the first of these product lines, health surveillance; the other …

February 2008

Boosting Revenue by Working Harder—or Smarter?

Urgent message: With careful consideration and disciplined planning, ancillary services can add to your bottom line without significantly adding to your workload. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc Practice Velocity Could Charles Dickens’ discourse provide a better depiction of the urgent care business today? Unprecedented growth in recent years proves the value of a healthcare delivery model like urgent care, based on consumer needs for affordability and convenience. But urgent care is not immune from challenges …

January 2008

Urgent Care Occupational Medicine Defined

A joint International Labor Organization/World Health Organization committee defines occupational health as the “promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental, and social well-being of workers in all occupations.” This article will refine that definition as it applies to urgent care occupational medicine (UCOM) and explore the rationale for incorporating products and services of value to employers within an urgent care clinic. Scope of Practice Clinics that offer occupational medicine services are uniquely …

Are DNA Relationship Testing Services a Good Match for Urgent Care?

Urgent message: The last 10 years have seen a dramatic increase in DNA parentage testing. Yet, the DNA testing industry remains, in essence, unregulated. Can urgent care providers fulfill a need for ethical and clinically reliable access, while receiving direct and immediate payment for your services? Elizabeth Panke, MD, PhD For many generations, defining the parent-child relationship was easy. The woman who gave birth to the child was the child’s legal mother; to a large …

May 2007

March 2007

December 2006

The Emergence of Retail Clinics

Urgent message: Retail-based healthcare clinics are a growing phenomenon. A report from the California HealthCare Foundation, excerpted here, says public perception is split, and their economic viability remains to be seen. How do their services stack up against those offered by urgent care? The first in-store clinics appeared in 2000 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MN) metropolitan area and were operated by QuickMedx, which later became Minute- Clinic. The company’s founder, Rick Krieger, says the business …