Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

New to the Area? Invite the Neighbors Over

Often, neighbors welcome people who’ve just moved into the neighborhood by dropping by with a basket of muffins or inviting them over for coffee. Castleview Hospital in Price, UT is turning that on its ear, though, by inviting residents living near its new urgent care center over for an open house. The family-friendly festivities will start right after a ceremonial ribbon-cutting, officially opening the site to the public. Staff will be on hand to meet …

Arrest Serves as a Reminder: Consider Running Candidates Through the Sex Offender Registry

A New Mexico physician assistant was arrested recently on charges he sexually abused a child repeatedly—years after being granted probation after being charged with enticement of a minor in Utah. He was denied a license in Utah for that reason in 2009, but was granted a PA license in New Mexico less than a year later. PAs are certified nationally, but licensed at the state level. JUCM published an original article on this very topic …

Feds Expand Pool of Mandatory Drug Tests for Government Workers

Urgent care operators who offer occupational medicine services should be aware that new guidelines for federal workplaces include mandatory screening for four relatively common opioid pain medications. As of October 1, employee drug tests must include screens for oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone, and hydromorphone. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says this will mainly affect some 400,000 federal employees with public health, public safety, and national security responsibilities. Positive results that are not …

Acute Occlusion of the Abdominal Aorta in a Patient with Severe Peripheral Vascular Disease and Untreated Atrial Fibrillation

Urgent message: Acute aortic obstruction should be suspected in all patients with back pain and a history of peripheral vascular disease and atrial fibrillation, as over 50% of these cases are misdiagnosed, resulting in high mortality rates in affected patients. Kristopher Palmer, DO and JM Alderson, DO Introduction Aortic occlusion is a rare but potentially fatal vascular phenomenon that must be considered in all patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD) complaining of severe pain. Here, …

Why Urgent Care Needs More Controllers, Fewer Empathizers

Urgent message: The rise of self-service technologies means that when patients actually do need to interact with frontline staff to resolve a service issue, their more complicated issues, more stringent demands, and higher expectations require an opinionated and outspoken “controller” personality type to take control of the situation. As urgent care relies on positive of word-of-mouth to drive new and repeat visits, a center not only must deliver an exceptional patient experience, but also resolve …

New Urgent Care Center Focuses on Dentistry for the Uninsured

Recognizing a need in the community and a chance to get an established patient base, the A.T. Still University-Missouri School of Dentistry and Oral Health (ATSU) is partnering with Affinia Healthcare on an urgent care clinic for uninsured people with dental problems. As with more traditional urgent care operators, the idea of the Centene Charitable Foundation Urgent Dental Care Center is to eliminate waiting periods for patients in need, but also to discourage people from …

Lessons Learned from Launching Telehealth Urgent Care Services

Colorado’s UCHealth had some idea what it was getting into when it launched its urgent care telehealth program last year—but as with all new ventures, things unforeseen and unimagined have provided ample opportunity to learn. Now the company is sharing some of those lessons in the form of 7 Riddles to Solve When Launching a Telehealth Urgent Care Service in an online article from mHealth Intelligence. The company acknowledges they’re not making money on telehealth …

Opportunity for Urgent Care Growth May Be Greatest in Rural Areas

There is a rare opportunity for a “transformative urgent care brand” to lock up market share in rural areas across the U.S., according to McGuireWoods, a public affairs consultancy. In fact, that was one of the nine key takeaways from their 12th annual Healthcare Provider Conference in Charlotte this month. Observing that urgent care operators have largely focused on growth in urban areas, McGuireWoods predicted that the next big opportunity will be in underserved rural …

HCA Targets Central Florida for Urgent Care Growth

HCA Healthcare is investing more resources in its urgent care business in central Florida, with plans to open four new centers, as well as three new freestanding emergency rooms, by the end of 2018. The company says it’s a sound move based on data indicating residents of Orange County and Seminole County don’t have sufficient access to primary care, including walk-in care. CareNow, HCA’s urgent care brand, already operates one location in Winter Springs in …

Cultivating Change in the Workplace

Urgent message: The strength of an urgent care operation ultimately lies in its people; for any change initiative to be successful, your center’s staff has to be prepared and willing to embrace change. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc is Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity, LLC and is Practice Management Editor for The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. In the workplace, as in life, the only real constant is change. And nowhere is …