Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Xpress Wellness Expands Footprint in Texas With Affordacare Deal

Xpress Wellness has acquired 3 new urgent care clinic locations in Wichita Falls, Granbury, and Stephenville, Texas, according to the company press release. The Affordacare Urgent Care clinics now added to its portfolio will be rebranded under the Integrity Urgent Care flag starting next month. Integrity Urgent Care clinics also offer occupational medicine services and virtual care options. Larger portfolio: With this transaction, Xpress Wellness now operates 58 clinics across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. See …

Why Long COVID is Hard to Pinpoint

A new study out of France published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection estimates the prevalence of long COVID while considering the fact that there is no universal definition of the condition. Researchers looked at several variations of long COVID characteristics to determine its prevalence. Of 10,615 adults sampled from August-November 2022, 54.5% reported SARS-CoV-2 infection with as many as 13.4% having long COVID, depending on which definition was used. When using the World Health Organization …

Providers Remain Empty-Handed While Change Recovers From Cyberattack

On March 10, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a letter to the entire healthcare industry regarding the massive cyberattack on UnitedHealth Group’s (UHG) Change Healthcare unit, which started on February 21. Change processes 15 billion healthcare transactions annually and has a connection to 1 in every 3 patient records, according to HHS. Its system is a clearing house for a number of critical services, such as revenue cycle, pharmacy, and clinical …

Fresh Investment Adds to Growth for American Family Care

American Family Care, operator of urgent care, primary care, and occupational medicine clinics, announced the closing of an equity investment by Lorient Capital, a firm that has a number of healthcare investments in its portfolio. Lorient Capital officials said in a press release that American Family Care has dozens of new locations in the pipeline across the United States, and its financial backing and experience will support ongoing growth strategies. Founded in 1982, American Family …

It’s Not Your Imagination: There Really Is More News Than Ever on Retail Efforts to Break into Healthcare

JUCM News readers may have noticed more items than ever informing you of moves by various retail drugstores and big-box stores to draw business away from urgent care and primary care practices. Most recently, we told you about Walgreens’ and Walmart’s’ latest attempts. If you haven’t been keeping score, an article just published by Becker’s Hospital Review notes that a grand total of 4,233 outlets have opened up—still just a fraction of the number of …

Leverage Local Media to Remind Patients That You’re There for them

Georgia Urgent Care in Milton, VT just restored their capability to offer x-rays and bone-density imaging. A new nurse practitioner is taking the next step in her career by joining the team at Sanford Health in Bemidji, MN. And Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital’s El Dorado Urgent Care center is now going to be seeing patients on the hospital campus. We know this because articles alerting the public to these events appeared in the St. …

Follow-Up: Will Closing the Window on COVID Emergency Declarations Undo Progress in the Opioid Crisis?

As regular JUCM News readers know, the May 11 expiration of federal, pandemic-related emergency declarations will have broad implications for urgent care (and the healthcare industry in general). One that we haven’t touched on is the impact on telehealth. As COVID-19 limited the ability for patients to visit brick-and-mortar practices, standards on remote prescribing were relaxed so more providers in more widespread locations could prescribe for patients they didn’t examine in person. An opinion piece …

Be Aware: ‘Big Tech’ Could Be Mining Your Systems for Sensitive Patient Information

A class action lawsuit filed by a John Doe plaintiff alleges that Meta, parent company of Facebook, has been peeking into the records of at least 644 hospital systems or “medical provider web properties.” As reported in Healthcare Dive, the suit comes on the heels of an investigative report by The Markup and Stat News that revealed specific instances in which Meta’s Pixel tracking tool dug up highly sensitive patient information that winds up in …

A 50-Year-Old Male Presents with Right Foot Pain

Images and case presented by ECG Stampede. KEY QUESTIONS With this condition, what three ECG features predict adverse outcomes and what is the expected progression of ECG changes? What is the treatment?

There’s No Crying in Urgent Care! (But If There Is, Can You Really Bill for It?)

It’s become common for patient complaints to make the rounds on social media. Occasionally, more outrageous or colorful claims go viral. Few capture the attention of major market media, though if you paged through the May 18, 2022 edition of the New York Post you would have been hard pressed to miss the headline screaming Shocked patient charged $40 ‘for crying’ during doctor’s appointment. The article stemmed from social media posts recounting a medical visit …

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