Urgent care
Encyclopedia : U : UR : URG : Urgent care
Urgent care is the delivery of ambulatory care in a facility dedicated to the delivery of unscheduled, walk-in care outside of a hospital emergency department. The initial urgent care centers opened in the 1970s. Since then this sector of the healthcare industry has rapidly expanded to an approximately 17,000 centers. Many of these centers have been started by entrepreneurial physicians who have responded to the public need for convenient access to unscheduled medical care. Other centers have been opened by hospital systems, seeking to attract patients. Much of the growth of these centers has been fueled by the significant savings that urgent care centers provide over the care in a hospital emergency department. Many managed care organizations (MCOs) now encourage their customers to utilize the urgent care option.
- 1 '''Urgent Care as Distinguished from other Ambulatory Healthcare Facilities'''
- 2 '''Organized Medicine and Urgent Care'''
- 3 '''Postgraduate Fellowship Training in Urgent Care Medicine'''
- 4 '''Point-of-Care (POC) Medication Dispensing'''
- 5 '''Specialized Services for Urgent Care Centers'''
- 6 External links
Urgent Care as Distinguished from other Ambulatory Healthcare Facilities
Urgent care centers are distinguished from other similar types of ambulatory healthcare centers.
Emergency Departments: Emergency departments are located within hospitals and are prepared to care for patients suffering true emergencies, such as myocardial infarctions ("heart attacks"), serious motor vehicle accidents, suicide attempts, and other such life-threatening conditions. Being located within a hospital, these centers are positioned to provide ready access to major surgeries and critical care units. Emergency departments are usually staffed by physicians with specialized training or board certification in emergency medicine. Most states in the USA require all hospitals to house an emergency department within the hospital building. A few states in the USA allow freestanding emergency departments to be built outside of a hospital building. Many authorities would consider this type of facility to be a high-acuity urgent care center, rather than a true emergency department.
Primary Care Offices with Extended Hours: Many primary care offices are open for some hours in the evenings and weekends. However, unless these centers are open for walk-in patients at all times when open for patients, offer on-site x-ray facilities, and care for most simple fractures and lacerations--these primary care physician offices are not considered to be true urgent care centers.
Primary Care Offices that Allow Walk-in Patients: Allowing walk-in patients is not a sufficient criterion to define a physician office as an urgent care. If the office does not offer the expanded services and significant after-hours care, then the physician office would not fit the definition of an urgent care center.
Mid-level Provider Offices in Retail Stores: In 2004, medical treatment began to be offered at small offices in retail stores with onsite pharmacies. These centers are generally staffed with nurse practitioners or physician assistants. Prices are generally posted in public view and patients can do shopping while waiting. Some experts consider these medical treatment sites to be the wave of the future in light of consumer driven health plans such as Health Savings Accounts. Most authorities, however, would not consider these to be true urgent care centers, because of the limited level of care that can be provided without a physician nor x-ray facilities on site. Concerns about conflict of interest and incentives to over-prescribe medications in a facility rented from a pharmacy have yet to be fully addressed by organized medicine or governmental agencies.
Organized Medicine and Urgent Care
[The American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine (AAUCM)] [The Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA)], and the [National Association for Ambulatory Urgent Care (NAFAC)] are national (USA) organizations of representing urgent care practioners in the US. All three organizations hold annual national conventions. Many leaders in the urgent care industry now eagerly anticipate the full establishment of urgent care as a fully-recognized specialty with fellowships and/or residencies that allow for proper training in the unique patient mix and patient presentations that are seen in urgent care centers. The American Board of Urgent Care Medicine (ABUCM), the certifying body of the AAUCM, functions to board certify properly qualified candidates in the specialty of urgent care medicine. The American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine (AAUCM) is a member of the Specialty and Service Society of the AMA and is accredited by the ACCME to provide physicians with continuing medical education (CME). In recent years the American Medical Association approved the code UCM (Urgent Care Medicine); this was accomplished by the leadership of the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine (AAUCM), allowing physicians to designate themselves as physicians specializing in urgent care medicine. These three organizations represent physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and administrators in the field of Urgent Care Medicine.Postgraduate Fellowship Training in Urgent Care Medicine
In 2006, physicians finally received the option to receive the first specific university-sponsored fellowship training in urgent care medicine. These fellows will be part of a new vanguard of specialists in urgent care medicine. This fellowship resulted from collaboration between the Department of Family Medicine University Hospitals of Cleveland / Case School of Medicine, the [Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA)], and University Primary and Specialty Care Practices, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio. The program is partially funded by an unrestricted grant of $30,000 from the Urgent Care Association of America to support the fellowship program. The fellowship has received unanimous approval by the Graduate Medical Education Committee of University Hospitals of Cleveland. Lee Resnick, MD is the Director of the Urgent Care Fellowship Program as well as serving UCAOA as the Chairman of the Academic Committee. Physicians in the urgent care fellowship program will receive training in the many disciplines that an urgent care physician needs to master. These disciplines include adult emergencies, pediatric emergencies, wound and injury evaluation and treatment, occupational medicine, urgent care procedures, and business aspects of the urgent care center. The one-year fellowship is currently open to graduates of accredited Family Medicine and Med/Peds residencies. Interested candidates may visit the website of the Urgent Care Association of America to learn more about the [urgent care fellowship program].
Point-of-Care (POC) Medication Dispensing
Point-of-Care dispensing enables healthcare practitioners in the urgent care setting to ensure that their patients receive their prescription prior to leaving the clinic. To offer this convenient and confidential service to patients, urgent care centers need to partner with a point-of-care dispensing corporation. These corporations work with healthcare practitioners to create patient solutions via pre-packed medications, advanced medication automation technology and individualized, personal service. Corporations that provide this type of service include:
Specialized Services for Urgent Care Centers
One sign that the urgent care industry is truly emerging as an important sector of the healthcare industry has been the development of supporting industries with specialized urgent care products.
Practice management software
A Medical malpractice insurance
External links
- http://www.urgentcaremedicine.org Homepage of the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine
- http://www.urgentcare.org/ Homepage of the National Association For Ambulatory Care
- http://www.ucaoa.org/ Homepage of the Urgent Care Association of America
- http://www.practicevelocity.com/ Homepage of a practice management and electronic medical record solution, designed for urgent care centers.
- http://www.nationalmednetwork/ Homepage of a consultants for starting urgent care centers.
- http://www.allscripts.com/ Provider of pre-packaged medications for the urgent care center.
- http://www.drxnet.com/ Provider of pre-packaged medications for the urgent care center.
- http://www.medxdispensing.com/ Provider of pre-packaged medications for physicians and the urgent care center.
- http://www.uhsweb.com/ A company that manages Work Comp patient claims for urgent care clinics. Services include patient claim eligibility, all billing and collections, and guaranteed 60 day payments to physicians.
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