Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Creating an Inclement-Weather Policy for Your Urgent Care Center

Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, is Practice Management Editor for JUCM, serves on the Board Directors of the Urgent Care Association of America, and is Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives for Practice Velocity. Urgent Message: Every urgent care center should have a policy addressing the various issues of communication, safety, pay, operations, and human resources that will undoubtedly come up when bad weather strikes. If the paradigm shift fueling the success of the urgent health-care model …

UPDATED (11/3): A Rational Approach to ‘Suspected’ Ebola Virus Disease in Urgent Care

Lee A. Resnick, MD Editor-in-Chief, JUCM. Fear and anxiety are high with the first cases of Ebola Virus Disease on American soil. While the CDC advice is useful, urgent cares need guidance that is relevant to our setting and reflects urgent care realities. Dr. Resnick, in collaboration with experts, has created sample policy and procedure that can be adopted at the clinic level to ensure safe and effective screening without unnecessary risk of exposure. Please …

Telemedicine 2014 – Medicine Without Borders

Jason A. Williams MPAS, PhD Dr. Williams is the founder of FastMed Urgent Care. The worst disservice we did to telemedicine was in fact calling it telemedicine. If we had just added video conferencing to our telephone calls to patients under our current practice as health care providers, we would have just called this a service improvement. Most physician practices phone patients to follow up, make appointments, relay lab results, answer questions about medications, and …

Pros and Cons of Sale-Leaseback Financing for Urgent Care

Author: Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity, Practice Management Editor, The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine with James Nawalaniec, St. Louis University URGENT MESSAGE: A growing urgent care operation has a constant need for working capital to open centers, expand existing centers, scale processes and technology, recruit providers and staff, and to support sales and marketing. While urgent care entrepreneurs have historically relied upon personal savings, bank loans or the equity investment of third parties, …

Global Healthcare Volunteering: What You Need to Know Before You Go

Author: Kenneth V. Iserson, MD, MBA, FACEP, FAAEM Kenneth V. Iserson, MD, MBA, FACEP, FAAEM, is a Fellow of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine and Professor Emeritus, Department of Emergency Medicine, The University of Arizona, Tucson. Why Global Medicine? Interest in practicing and teaching medicine and nursing around the world has increased exponentially. Some of our colleagues now have international experience and many others dream of following a path to remote regions. Yet most …

Case Series: Stingray Envenomation

Urgent Message: Urgent care providers in coastal areas need to be prepared to treat stingray envenomation. Immersion in water heated to a precise temperature is the key to pain relief. Authors: George Kamajian, DO, and Blake Singletary, OMS3 George Kamajian, DO, is a Medical Director at Largo Clinic and Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Largo, FL. Blake Singletary, OMS4, is a 4th year medical student at Lake …

Tricks of the Trade: Ear Suction Kit

Urgent Message: Most urgent care centers don’t carry commercial equipment for ear suction but a kit can be assembled with readily available supplies. Author: Ali Ahmadizadeh, MD, is an attending physician in the Department of Otolaryngology at New York Head and Neck Institute, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY. Otorrhea is one of the most frequent clinical presentations in urgent care. Examination of the ear ideally requires ear suction, but that is not possible in …

Diabetes Mellitus: Current Diagnosis, Screening and Management Issues in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: Diabetes mellitus is a common, complex and important condition frequently encountered in the urgent care setting. This article reviews current diagnostic criteria for diabetes and prediabetes and types of diabetes and discusses issues related to screening for diabetes and management issues relevant to urgent care. The authors previously reviewed the management of acute hyperglycemia in the July/August 2012 issue of JUCM. Author: Anthony J. Pick, MD, CDE and David L. Pick, MD, FAAFP …

Protecting Your Urgent Care Center Against Robbery

Author: Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, Experity Content Advisor, Urgent Care Association of America Associate Editor, Journal of Urgent Care Medicine Your urgent care center, although focused on providing medical treatment, is still essentially a retail business. Your patients are your customers, and they come and go; financial transactions (cash, credit card, insurance) take place; and employees deliver clinical care and customer service simultaneously. Hence, urgent care centers, like other retail establishments, face the very …