Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Pretravel Consultations in the Urgent Care Setting

Urgent message: A pretravel consultation assesses the patient’s fitness for travel in the context of anticipated risks associated with their journey. This individualized counseling takes into account not just age or destination, but also general health and other factors such as past travel experience. Given the proliferation of single-specialty travel medicine clinics, with appropriate training and preparation, these assessments can easily be performed in the urgent care setting. Benjamin Silverberg, MD, MSc, FAAFP, FCUCM Citation: …

Medical Care for Traveling Teams: An Alternative View of Travel Medicine

Urgent message: International travel and high-impact competitive sports combine to equal a strong need for consistent, high-quality medical care that’s immediately accessible. Could your urgent care center provide it? Travel medicine, sports medicine, and episodic injury care are all within the purview of urgent care practice.1 Urgent care physicians and other healthcare providers are often tasked with provision and/or consultation for healthcare management of traveling groups and nonprofessional teams, including sports organizations, charity groups, mission …

Enhancing Urgent Care Profits with Travel Medicine

Urgent message: Travel medicine is a service addition that enables urgent care operators to attract more patients and increase revenue from existing patients while leveraging existing infrastructure and personnel. When an urgent care center’s patient revenues exceed operating expenses, the operation is said to have achieved break-even profitability—at which point each incremental patient visit contributes directly to the bottom line. Nevertheless, in the face of rising fixed costs and falling payer reimbursements, many centers still …