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Urgent care is the delivery of ambulatory care
Ambulatory care

Ambulatory care is any medicine care delivered on an outpatient basis. Many medical conditions do not require hospital admission and can be managed without admission to a hospital....
 in a facility dedicated to the delivery of medical care outside of a hospital
Hospital

A hospital is an institution for health care providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment, and often but not always providing for longer-term patient stays....
 emergency department
Emergency department

The emergency department , sometimes termed the emergency room , emergency ward , accident & emergency department or casualty department is a hospital or primary care department that provides initial treatment to patients with a broad spectrum of illnesses and injury, some of which may be Medical emergency and requiri...
, usually on an unscheduled, walk-in basis. Urgent care centers are primarily used to treat patient
Patient

A patient is any person who receives medical attention, care, or Therapy. The person is most often illness or injured and in need of treatment by a physician or other Health care provider, although one who is visiting a physician for a routine check-up may also be viewed as a patient....
s who have an injury
Injury

Injury or bodily injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or Purpose of the body caused by an outside wiktionary:agent or force, which may be physical or chemical....
 or illness
Illness

Illness can be defined as a state of poor health.It is sometimes considered a synonym for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist....
 that requires immediate care but is not serious enough to warrant a visit to an emergency room. Often urgent care centers are not open on a continuous basis, unlike a hospital emergency room which would be open at all times.

The initial urgent care centers opened in the 1970s.






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Encyclopedia


Urgent care is the delivery of ambulatory care
Ambulatory care

Ambulatory care is any medicine care delivered on an outpatient basis. Many medical conditions do not require hospital admission and can be managed without admission to a hospital....
 in a facility dedicated to the delivery of medical care outside of a hospital
Hospital

A hospital is an institution for health care providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment, and often but not always providing for longer-term patient stays....
 emergency department
Emergency department

The emergency department , sometimes termed the emergency room , emergency ward , accident & emergency department or casualty department is a hospital or primary care department that provides initial treatment to patients with a broad spectrum of illnesses and injury, some of which may be Medical emergency and requiri...
, usually on an unscheduled, walk-in basis. Urgent care centers are primarily used to treat patient
Patient

A patient is any person who receives medical attention, care, or Therapy. The person is most often illness or injured and in need of treatment by a physician or other Health care provider, although one who is visiting a physician for a routine check-up may also be viewed as a patient....
s who have an injury
Injury

Injury or bodily injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or Purpose of the body caused by an outside wiktionary:agent or force, which may be physical or chemical....
 or illness
Illness

Illness can be defined as a state of poor health.It is sometimes considered a synonym for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist....
 that requires immediate care but is not serious enough to warrant a visit to an emergency room. Often urgent care centers are not open on a continuous basis, unlike a hospital emergency room which would be open at all times.

The initial urgent care centers opened in the 1970s. Since then this sector of the health care industry has rapidly expanded to an approximately 8,000 centers. Many of these centers have been started by entrepreneur
Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of an organization, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome....
ial physician
Physician

A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and injury....
s 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
Managed care

The term managed care is used to describe a variety of techniques intended to reduce the cost of providing health benefits and improve the quality of care organizations that use those techniques or provide them as services to other organizations , or systems of financing and delivering health care to enrollees organized around managed care...
 organizations (MCOs) now encourage their customers to utilize the urgent care option.

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 infarction
Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when the Blood flow to part of the heart is interrupted. This is most commonly due to occlusion of a coronary artery following the rupture of a Vulnerable plaque, which is an unstable collection of lipids and white blood cells in the wall of an artery....
s ("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
Emergency medicine

Emergency medicine is a speciality of medicine that focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of acute illnesses and injuries that require immediate medical attention....
. 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
Primary care

Primary care is a term used for the activity of a health care provider who acts as a first point of consultation for all patients. Continuity of care is also a key characteristic of 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
Primary care physician

A primary care physician, or PCP, is a physician/Doctor of Medicine who provides both the first contact for a person with an undiagnosed health concern as well as continuing care of varied medical conditions, not limited by cause, organ system, or diagnosis....
 offices are not considered to be true urgent care centers.

Walk-in primary care offices

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 2000, medical treatment began to be offered at small offices in retail stores with onsite pharmacies. These centers are generally staffed with nurse practitioner
Nurse practitioner

A Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse who has completed specific advanced nursing education and training in the diagnosis and management of common as well as complex medical conditions....
s or physician assistant
Physician assistant

In the United States, a 'physician assistant' is an advanced practice clinician licensed to practice medicine with the supervision of a licensed physician....
s. 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. These retail clinics are not 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, but the American Academy of Family Practice has issued Desired Attributes for Retail Clinics .

Organized medicine and urgent care

The Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) holds an annual spring convention and, also, offers an annual fall conference. The American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine (AAUCM), also, holds an annual convention. Many leaders in organized urgent care medicine anticipate the full establishment of urgent care as a fully-recognized specialty.

Codes for urgent care

In recent years the American Medical Association approved the code UCM (Urgent Care Medicine) for physicians to self-designate themselves as specializing in urgent care medicine, this code was developed with the assistance of the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine. Services rendered in an urgent care center may be designated, using the place of service code -20 (POS -20) on the CMS-1500 form, as submitted to third-party payors. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have designated two specific codes to apply to urgent care centers: S9083 (global fee for urgent care centers) and S9088 (services rendered in an urgent care center). Because of the complex nature of coding for urgent care centers, the Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) offers a specialized day-and-a-half advanced coding workshop for providers and coders as part of its annual fall conference.

Postgraduate fellowship training

In 2006, the Urgent Care Association of America sponsored the first fellowship training program 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 from the Urgent Care Association of America to support the fellowship program. Physicians in the urgent care fellowship program 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. In 2007, the Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) sponsored a second fellowship opportunity through the University of Illinois. The one-year fellowships are open to graduates of accredited Family Medicine and Med/Peds residencies.

Point-of-care 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 service to patients, urgent care centers need to partner with a point-of-care dispensing corporation.

Point of Care dispensing not only enables physicians to dispense at urgent care facilities; but any licensed health care facility with a licensed dispensing practitioner on staff (Not all practitioners are able to dispense). The patient may opt to receive medication at the point of care; however not any individual can walk into a health clinic and request medication. Unlike a pharmacy, practitioners may only dispense to their own patients. Any regulation regarding state pharmacy law, the DEA and any governing body vary from state to state. Dispensing is not legal in certain states.

Specialized services

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

Software developed just for urgent care has been developed.

Group purchasing organization

Group purchasing organizations, focusing on the urgent care industry, have been formed. The concept of these GPOs is that they join hundreds of urgent care centers together to allow the type of price bargaining that previously was only available to hospitals.

Medical malpractice insurance

Malpractice insurance offerings unique to the urgent care industry have begun to be widely discussed in light of the fact that many insurers do not recognize the reduced malpractice risk of urgent care centers. Insurers that recognize this reduced risk do not group urgent care centers with hospital emergency physicians and other high-risk specialties. Features of this type of insurance may include no charge for tail coverage when providers leave ("tail coverage" is coverage for malpractice claims which may arise after termination of a policy), 3-5 day approval of new providers, no additional premium when providers are added to the policy, per visit FTE rating, and lower premiums.

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