Practice Management
The weather is warm, schools are getting out, and people are venturing off into the wild for outdoor adventure—and to face the perils of tick-infested woods and fields. Visits to urgent care sparked by fear of tick-borne illnesses are sure to follow. In addition to well-known (though still relatively uncommon) diagnoses like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the newly identified Human Powassan (POW) virus can be deadly in some cases. Its symptoms are …
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It’s tough out there for retailers—which means it’s at least as tough for the building managers and owners that do business with them. While urgent care centers used to be considered a “bad fit” (along with all medical facilities), they’re now becoming the darlings of retail space developers. National UC Realty puts the number of active urgent care locations at 9,600 and climbing, making the industry a presence that cannot be ignored on the real …
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Infectious disease is not an area one would expect urgent care to play an important role, typically. If a patient in a rural county needed to “see” an ID at an urban teaching hospital, though, a virtual visit facilitated by the local urgent care center might be the patient’s best shot at getting the care they need in a timely manner. That kind of value has been demonstrated in a new study of infectious disease …
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More American workers are failing tests for illegal drugs these days than in many years. Quest Diagnostics reports that 4.2% of the 8.9 million employee drug tests it administered last year came back positive; that’s the highest rate since 2004. Marijuana remains the most prevalent, though other drugs are also on the rise. This is especially surprising, given the fact that so many states have looser laws on marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes. …
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The practice of physicians dismissing patients from their care seems to be on the uptick in recent years, according to a new report in JAMA Internal Medicine. Roughly 90% of the 794 practices that were part of the study have “fired” patients in the past 2 years—with 8% saying they’ve terminated relationships with ≥51 patients in that time. The greatest portion of participants (67%) has let up to 20 patients go. Only 10% have not …
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Some urgent care providers have expressed concern that they could be the next subjects of Department of Justice scrutiny in the wake of eClinicalWorks agreement to settle federal charges. Those fears stem from the idea that incentive payments they received from eClinicalWorks could be viewed as ill-gotten gains. (As we told you just days ago, the company had been sued over charges it falsely certified that its EHR met all government criteria and that it …
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It’s official: New York City is now the latest entity to forbid hiring companies of any kind—including urgent care centers—from asking prospective employees how much money they made in previous positions. Though it won’t take effect until October, a bill to that effect was signed into effect just last week. The intent is to help close the gap in average salary between male and female workers. The rationale is that anyone who made less money …
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Texas Children’s Hospital may not have an actual hospital in Austin, TX, but they’ll have a presence by virtue of plans to open pediatric urgent care centers and other facilities there over the next 3 years. Those centers, along with primary care practices, pediatric specialty clinics, and maternal-fetal medical practices, will be standalone locations that are not connected to any physical hospital in the vicinity. In effect, Texas Children’s will be using urgent care and its …
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Going to the emergency room for a simple sore throat will cost Georgians who get their insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia as of July 1, when a new rule designed to cut unnecessary healthcare costs goes into effect. In a nutshell, it demands that patients choose another care setting unless they have a true emergency—urgent care being the most likely source, given the difficulty many find when trying to make timely appointments …
Read MoreUrgent care thrives on repeat visits and positive word-of-mouth from loyal patients. Although many urgent care centers track the percentage of new vs established patients—those who have been seen in the past 3 years—few measure frequency of use by individual patients. This is an important measure used in other service businesses, however, based on the assumption that customers who patronize their favorite businesses more often also spend more money, and encourage others (either in person and …
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