Practice Management
The growth of telemedicine in urgent care and other settings is helping feed greater access to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Relaxed scope of practice laws in both red and blue states, as well as evolving digital health technology that exploits the popularity of smartphones and tablets, make it easier and less expensive for patients to connect online—a model that typically employs NPs and PAs under the supervision of an on-site physician. This is further …
Read More
Being an industry populated by medical professionals who also happen to be forward-thinking business visionaries, urgent care is likely to see accelerated growth in telemedicine in 2017 and beyond. Conversely, operators who don’t see the benefit run the risk of getting left in the dust, as even large healthcare businesses and networks—typically, slower to adopt new practices than entrepreneurial types—are forging ahead in offering virtual visits. Occupational medicine giant Concentra just announced it is adding …
Read More
The Texas Association of Business—the state’s chamber of commerce, essentially—is pushing lawmakers to come up with a bill that would allow more patients to use telemedicine. The TAB says the move is necessary after a decade of rising healthcare premiums and deductibles, which has increased the burden both on its members and their employees. Loosening restrictions on telemedicine has seen opposition from the physician-led Texas Medical Board, whose efforts have seen to it that the …
Read More
Legislators in New Jersey are weighing the relative benefits of telemedicine in order to ensure the evolving technology is used properly—namely, that there’s no danger of virtual doctor visits taking the place of in-person care then the latter is clearly needed. Advocates point out that sometimes patients need to see a physician after even urgent care centers have close, though their symptoms don’t warrant an expensive trip to the emergency room. Detractors say some patients …
Read More
Urgent message: Telemedicine can augment walk-in urgent care operations via provider load–balancing across centers in multiunit networks as well as direct-to-consumer platforms that expand a center’s geographic coverage, differentiate a center’s brand from that of competitors, and drive additional revenue. Introduction Given that the most common diagnoses seen in urgent care centers are low-acuity, low-touch conditions affecting the respiratory system, ears, nose, or throat—many of which can be treated via telemedicine— the looming question for …
Read More
Previous analysis of how viable telemedicine could become has focused on providing access for residents of underserved rural areas and cutting down on lost productivity time for employees. Now, with state legislatures around the country approving laws that demand parity for telemedicine, employers and payers are looking more closely at the economics of offering coverage for remote physician encounters. IHS Technology projects that annual spending on telehealth will rise to $2.2 billion in 2018, up …
Read More
Name a rapidly expanding healthcare industry offering care that’s convenient, fast, and relatively low cost. “Urgent care” is the easy answer, so if you said “telemedicine” you get bonus points. National Business Group (NBG) predicted months ago that employers would continue warming to the idea and that many more would start offering telemedicine benefits; now it’s confirmed that 74% are doing so, up from 48% just last year. NBG also broke down what employers value …
Read More
Urgent care centers that are dipping a toe into the telehealth pool may be helping to set standards that will become common practice in years to come. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine predicts that telehealth will continue to grow, becoming more prevalent in teaching hospitals and opening the door for better chronic disease management. The article identifies three trends fueling its growth: Transformation from an application that increases access to …
Read More
FastMed Urgent Care has become the biggest urgent care provider in the country to offer patients telemedicine services. The company has partnered with TouchCare to start taking mobile video appointments in North Carolina, via smartphone or tablet. If all goes well there, FastMed plans to offer similar service in Arizona and Texas later this year. The company says it has a distinct advantage over virtual-only services because patients can start with a remote visit but …
Read More