Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

New Data Exchange Models Serve Urgent Care’s and Payers’ Interests

Patient population data rooted in urgent care visits could be invaluable to healthcare systems, especially with patients who don’t have a primary care physician. And, of course, urgent care operators want to be included in local provider networks. Current and emerging technologies, as well as growing emphasis on value-based care, make this the perfect time to strike formal partnerships to exchange electronic patient data, providing a path for both parties toward their goals. It’s incumbent …

Is Orthopedic Urgent Care Really Urgent Care?

As the urgent care industry moves forward, other specialties seek to get on board by establishing niche markets within the urgent care industry. Across the United States, subspecialty urgent care such as orthopedic urgent care, pediatric urgent care, and psychiatric urgent care, etc. are already trying to establishing themselves within the urgent care industry. As these facilities become more specialized and exclusive, the question must be asked: Are these subspecialty facilities urgent care—or just marketing …

Study Shows Attributes of Telemedicine and Urgent Care Are Well Aligned

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 …

Hospital Tells Sturgis Bikers to Try Urgent Care

There have been nine injuries due to motorcycle crashes related to this year’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and the event has five more days to go. That’s not exactly news that’s going to impact your day—unless you run an urgent care center in the Rapid City, SD area. Black Hills Urgent Care is one location that’s likely to see increased patient traffic related to the event. Regional Hospitals went so far as to urge bikers and …

Urgent Care Needs to Prepare for Zika Visits

We told you earlier that residents of Miami have been infected with Zika virus transmitted by local mosquitos, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to dispatch an emergency response team and revise its guidance on testing and prevention. Regardless of how likely or unlikely further domestic exposure may be, media attention and summer travel plans are likely to drive more patients with concerns about Zika to urgent centers. As such, operators are advised …

Dignity and GoHealth Go in on Bay Area Urgent Care Clinics

Dignity Health, California’s biggest private hospital network, is pouring resources into the urgent care arena by opening the first of a dozen clinics it will operate with GoHealth Urgent Care in the San Francisco Bay area. Dignity says Americans “pay too much and get too little” for healthcare, and that urgent care can be a conduit to reducing waste. Treating a patient in urgent care vs the emergency room is also cheaper for the hospital, …

Affordable Care Act Giveth to—and Taketh Away from—Urgent Care Centers

William Rodney, MD couldn’t jump fast enough when he found out the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) would be raising Medicaid primary care payments to Medicare levels. His urgent care practice (featured here previously; see One Year In, Latino-focused Clinic Doubles in Size) took in enough additional fees to create an outreach clinic for bilingual uninsured patients and to provide x-rays, ultrasound, and other services for underserved communities in Tennessee. Now he’s worried about …

Common Symptoms Could Lead Patients with Elizabethkingia anophelis to Urgent Care

Sudden fever, shortness of breath, chills…just the kind of “funk” that leads countless patients to the urgent care center. Well-informed providers are learning to look a little closer at such patients, though, with 21 people having died this year already from a usually obscure bacterial infection. Elizabethkingia anophelis is marked by symptoms often synonymous with the common cold, though its outcomes can be far more serious. Scores of cases have been reported in Illinois, Michigan, …

‘Out of State’ Doesn’t Mean You’re Out of Range for Telehealth Patients in Alaska

Alaska is the latest of many states marching toward adoption of new telehealth bills, but legislators there has been typically “maverick” in their approach to adopting such new technologies. The interesting thing about that state’s soon-to-be signed law is that physicians won’t have to be in-state in order to prescribe for Alaskans. In addition to removing in-state presence requirements for prescribing via telemedicine, SB 74 will pave the way for patients to connect with occupational …