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More Insight
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May 1, 2013
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Virtual and Walk-In Converge
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Telehealth Takes Aim At The Mass Market
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The telemedicine industry is 20 years old. So why are we hearing so much about telemedicine today if the industry has been around for so long?
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April 1, 2013
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The Gold Mine Within
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The Evolution of Customer Service in Immediate Care Medicine
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Delight, enchantment, service excellence. That’s what companies like American Express, Target and Apple call it. The big question is whether any of that customer service sophistication is showing up in the walk-in medicine industry.
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March 1, 2013
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Worksite Clinics On And Off Campus
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More Complex Care Models and Payment Schemes
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There is new-found energy in the worksite clinic business. Everyone wants in, from the largest health systems to the smallest insurance broker.
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February 1, 2013
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The Push For 2020 Starts Now
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2013 Forecast Issue
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As we look ahead to 2013, all indications are that the urgent care market will continue to gain steam, while retail clinics will see only modest growth.
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January 1, 2013
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Urgent Care Is Still Hot
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2012 Year In Review
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Retail clinics may still get a lot of attention in the press, but urgent care continued to be where the action was during the past 12 months.
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December 1, 2012
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Filling The Primary Care Void
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New Services Are Changing The DNA Of Walk-In Medicine
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TB Testing. Camp and Sports Physicals. Chronic disease management. Weight loss. Smoking cessation. And full primary care services.The reasons are up for debate, but the facts are clear: new services are showing up at local urgent care and retail clinics that weren’t there five years ago.
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November 1, 2012
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Health Insurance Buys Into Urgent Care
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What's Behind Recent Acquisitions And Investments
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If the last two years are any indication, large health insurance companies appear to have an appetite for acquiring or investing in urgent care networks. The rationale for these investments appears simple enough: provide more patient convenience and reduced emergency room costs. But is there more to it than that?
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October 1, 2012
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A Measure of Survival
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Walk-In Medicine's State of Quality
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With the formation of ACOs and clinically integrated networks, one inevitable reality for operators of retail and urgent care clinics is that to participate, they will have to raise the bar on quality. “For many in the walk-in medicine world, this is a new expectation,” says Michael Millenson, president of Health Quality Advisors. “If you are a standalone urgent care center and you have low Yelp scores, your risk is reputational; but if you look to join a clinically integrated network that is at risk for lower Medicare payments because of your reputational risk, they won’t want you in that network."
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September 1, 2012
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Walk-In Patients Are Now Strategic
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Annual ConvUrgentCare Strategy Symposium Issue
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Six years ago retail clinics seemed to be popping up on every street corner. It was a stressful time for family physicians and urgent care operators because the competitive world seemed to be changing overnight. But since that time the three primary varieties of walk-in medicine, namely retail, urgent care and primary care clinics, all seem to be uniquely positioned to take advantage of changes in the U.S. healthcare economy. Why? Because the walk-in patient has become strategic.
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August 1, 2012
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Another Fork In The Road For Walmart
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What's Next For The Big Retailer In Traditional Healthcare Delivery?
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Walmart is famous for low prices. The U.S. healthcare system is famous for out-of-control costs. In 2005 Walmart decided to link the two concepts by opening medical clinics in its stores. And since then hundreds of articles, speeches and slide presentations have speculated on what will become of the marriage between Walmart and the U.S. healthcare system. But Walmart’s medical clinic strategy is at a major crossroads.
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July 4, 2012
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Is Growth Stalled Or About To Explode?
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2012 Mid-Year Retail Clinic Review
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Those looking for signs of major expansion in the retail clinic market during the first six months of 2012 will find mostly disappointing news. But it may be temporary.
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June 6, 2012
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The New Face of Urgent Care
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High-End Locations and Stunning Building Design Reflect an Evolving Industry
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New players with big money are joining the urgent care industry, building modern facilities in high-rent retail locations. Some industry observers believe this could be the beginning of a dominant national brand in urgent care, which makes a lot of small, independent operators nervous. Others believe this is just another cycle of inexperienced investors about to fail.
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May 5, 2012
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Retail Clinics Finding More Favor Among PAs and NPs
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Survey Shows Significant Increase In Positive Attitudes
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To most who are involved in the retail clinic industry, the match of a nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA) and a retail clinic seems a perfect fit. But to the early providers who started practicing in that setting and their peers who did not, the fit was hardly perfect.
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April 5, 2012
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Is It Too Early To Think About ACOs?
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What urgent care operators should do today
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The general impression is that ACOs are part of healthcare reform; they involve a small number of hospitals in some kind of Medicare pilot project; and they might be struck down by the Supreme Court. But ACOs are appearing in different forms, and many will happen no matter what.
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February 2, 2012
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2012 Market Forecast
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Cautious Optimism Continues for Walk-In Medicine
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Virtually all of the emerging patterns point to a good year for walk-in medicine. We expect a minimum of 10 percent growth this year in the number of retail clinics, and equal growth in the urgent care sector. We anticipate an even greater increase in the number of worksite clinics opening, which will be accompanied by the entrance of new players, some of them backed by private equity.
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January 6, 2012
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2011 Year in Review
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Walk-In Medicine's Second Spring
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If you had to choose one word to describe the past year in walk-in medicine, it might be “spring.” In this 2011 Year in Review, we not only tell the numbers story, but we look at the top-10 events or trends we believe defined the walk-in medicine industry.
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December 5, 2011
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Why Retail Clinics Matter
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Get Ready for a New Round of Growth
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If you have been in the camp that thinks retail clinics won’t last, it’s time to take another look at the landscape. We believe the retail clinic concept is about to enter a period of strong growth, driven by the model’s underlying efficiency at a time when services will seek the most logical care venue based on acuity. In this feature article, we discuss our “Top Five” reasons for optimism in the retail clinic channel.
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October 6, 2011
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Urgent Care Becomes Strategic to Hospitals
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Integration with Primary Care is Key
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It seems like a natural fit to have a hospital system operating a network of urgent care centers, especially at a time when population management and accountable care organizations seem to be ruling strategic plans going forward. Yet with all of this momentum around population management, integration with primary care and efforts to reduce emergency room visits, the number of hospitals operating urgent care centers is surprisingly low. In this article we look at some hospital systems have have had great success with their urgent care initiatives.
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