Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

The Top 10 Mistakes Hospitals Make in the Urgent Care Business

Introduction It should not be surprising that when hospital executives and personnel sit down to discuss issues and problems around population health, accountable care organization (ACO) integration, network development, cost containment, new product lines, hospital readmission rates, care coordination, and related topics they often arrive at hospital-centric and hospital-based solutions to solve them.1 As hospitals and hospital networks look to urgent care centers to address some of these issues through hospital/urgent care affiliations, joint ventures, …

Who Owns Patient Medical Records?

Urgent message: While historically there has been an understanding that patients own the information contained in their medical records, and that providers own the record itself, the current lack of a federal law governing the ownership of medical records poses a conundrum when those records are stored electronically. New challenges demand innovative solutions—often in the form of new technologies that make life easier. Certainly technology has advanced healthcare to improve and lengthen our lives. Yet, …

Demand for Medical Assistants Will Outstrip Supply by 2024

Medical assistants (MAs) are the core of urgent care’s clinical support workforce (as noted in Cost Effective Staffing with Medical Assistants in the January, 2017 edition of JUCM; see https://www.jucm.com/cost-effective-staffing-medical-assistants/). However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for MAs is expected to outstrip supply over the next decade, just as the aging baby-boom population will increase demand for physician services—especially in the primary care setting, where the bulk of MAs work. For urgent …

Can ePrescribing Help Urgent Care Fight Against Opioid Addiction?

The episodic nature of the urgent care setting makes it a popular target for opioid addicts “doctor shopping” for someone new to write prescriptions. As such, urgent care clinicians must remain always-vigilant for ways to help stem rampant opioid addiction. One tool that’s built into the urgent care electronic medical record systems (eprescribing) can be a valuable weapon in that fight. Where a paper script—or, worse, a whole pad—can be lost or stolen, an electronic …

Managing Your Urgent Care Center’s Emotional Culture

Urgent message: As in most business settings, urgent care operators emphasize the importance of a positive cognitive culture. Given the close quarters and frequent interaction among colleagues and patients, however, emotional culture can also have a strong influence on quality of care, patient and employee satisfaction—and even the success of the operation. [The following summary of the January-February, 2016 Harvard Business Review Article spotlights how organizations are slowly realizing the importance of managing the emotional …

Wanted: One Doctor to Answer the Call of the Rockies

If you have a dollar in your pocket right now and would relish the opportunity to practice in your own clinic in the Rocky Mountains, Park County, CO is waiting to fulfill your dreams. There’s a five-room clinic there that has been vacant for over 2 years, leaving some 16,000 residents without a local facility that can set their broken bones, prescribe antibiotics for their children’s earaches, or even provide follow-up for chronic conditions. Park …

Can a DFW Airport Urgent Care Location Take Off?

Code 3 is gambling that opening a pair of acute care facilities at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)—an urgent care center and a separate freestanding emergency room—will help profits soar. However, some industry experts are skeptical that the airport has the right stuff. Code 3 says the clinic should open in August, while the goal for the ED is to open by the end of the year. While urgent care centers in airport locations are …

Back Pain After Falling from a Ladder

A 21-year-old male presents to your urgent care center complaining of back pain after falling from a ladder. He is unclear about the exact point of impact, but the pain increases with attempts to bend or twist. Examination reveals he has decreased range of motion. View the image taken (Figure 1) and consider your next steps, along with possible diagnoses.

Insurer Works to Help Members Choose Between Urgent Care and the ED

Typically, going to the emergency room costs a lot more than a trip to an urgent care center for the same complaint. You’d think insurers would be invested in getting their plan members to recognize the difference and make informed decisions accordingly. The chief medical officer of Innovation Health agrees, and revealed a “decision tree” to help patients choose wisely—and economically. Sunil Budhrani, MD, an emergency room doctor for close to 20 years who went …

At Customers’ Behest, Urgent Care Player Getting into the Retail Game

Urgent care and hospital operator Sutter Health is diversifying its efforts to reach patients in multiple settings by opening its own retail-style walk-in clinics in the Sacramento, CA area. Sutter already operated a few retail clinics housed in Rite Aid stores, along with dozens of urgent care centers. Now they’ve opened three such locations of their own in neighborhood shopping centers, with plans to open nine more in the San Francisco Bay area this summer. …

Login to JUCM