Urgent message: Urgent care providers are likely to encounter law enforcement officers in the workplace at some point—and to be asked to comply with requests that may or may not violate a patient’s right to privacy, or compromise the urgent care center’s compliance with federal or state law or medical ethics. Understanding your legal rights and responsibilities is essential to fulfilling your obligations to both the patient and the law. Suzanne Cate Jones and Anne …
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‘Patient Experience’ Trend May Favor Urgent Care
Healthcare payment reform may be giving urgent care a leg up on the local emergency room, according to a new white paper from Press Ganey. While positive “patient experience” scores enable hospitals to collect greater reimbursement, tight margins require sharper focus on clinical care than ever before. In addition, pressure to keep household expenses down is pushing many patients (ie, customers) to consider their options more carefully, especially for lower-acuity complaints like those tailor-made for …
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