Practice Management
A 66-year-old male presents in the urgent care, saying “it’s hard to breathe.” He’s had weakness and dyspnea for one day. The patient has a medical history of diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure. The patient has a pacemaker. An ECG is obtained. View the ECG captured above and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page
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Urgent care medicine is still trying to find its place in the vast medical care landscape. At the same time, the whole “house of medicine” is going through yet another challenging time. Our journals and the media are reporting that medical providers are feeling demoralized and uncertain of the future. In some clinics, the medical staff shows up focused only on surviving the day. Considering these organizational issues, it can often feel overwhelming when leaders …
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What Should We Do with the Nail? Nailbed Repair in Children Take Home Point: After nail bed repair, discarding the fingernail was associated with similar rates of infection and similar cosmetic outcomes compared to replacement of the fingernail. Citation: Jain A, Grieg A, Jones A, et al. Effectiveness of nail bed repair in children with or without replacing the fingernail: NINJA multicentre randomized clinical trial. BJS, 2023, 110, 432–438 https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znad031 Relevance: Procedures for nail bed …
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Urgent Message: As a rising percentage of jurisdictions require disclosure of salary ranges to current and/or prospective employees, urgent care leaders must achieve compliance with pay transparency laws. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc California, New York, Washington, and Rhode Island are among the latest states to add salary range transparency laws to their books.[1] As of this writing, eight states have enacted such laws, with at least 15 more considering legislation on this topic, including Illinois, …
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Andrew Alaya MD MSc Urgent Message: Abdominal pain is a common urgent care complaint that may result from a variety of benign to life-threatening etiologies, which can pose diagnostic and therapeutic difficulty for the clinician. Ureteral calculi are able to be diagnosed and managed in the urgent care setting. Citation: Alaya A. Detection and Management of Urinary Calculi in the Urgent Care Setting. J Urgent Care Med. 2023;18(2); 31-38 Introduction/Epidemiology Formation of calculi in the …
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A 52-year-old man presents to urgent care for a new growth on his nose. On examination, a smooth, faint pink papule with overlying scant telangiectasias was seen at the lateral nasal sidewall. View the image above and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the following page.
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A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes the well-being and working conditions for health workers using self-reported, cross-sectional data. From 2018 to 2022, health workers reported an increase in days where they felt their mental health was poor (from 3.3 days to 4.5 days). Meanwhile, the percentage who reported feeling burnout “very often” increased from 11.6% to 19.0%. Overall, 57.0% reported anxiety symptoms in 2022, and 44.2% reported being …
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Once again, Patient First is offering community members free X-rays of their trick-or-treat Halloween candy each evening until November 3. The goal is for kids to become familiar with the urgent care setting and the providers and staff, which may ease some anxiety should they return for another reason. Not to mention, looking at the caramel center of a candy bar is much more fun than looking at a broken bone. Possible recruitment for the …
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Nutritional supplement retailer GNC is yet another consumer-facing outfit expanding its reach into healthcare provider services. Three new GNC membership plans will offer virtual visits for urgent care and primary care, according to a press release. The tiered membership plans start at $34.99 for a full year with no added cost for visits or medication fills from a list of more than 100 prescriptions. The next highest tier costs $9.99 per month and includes more …
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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) has agreed to acquire more than 50 North Carolina-based locations of FastMed. The pending acquisition is set to close in early 2024, and once the deal is finalized, FastMed would operate independently from the not-for-profit Blue Cross NC. The Blues plan has been a non-controlling minority investor in FastMed since 2012, and it will acquire only FastMed’s North Carolina locations. FastMed also provides telehealth, …
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