Medical billing specialist

1. About Urgent care medical service Urgent care – also known as immediate care – bridges the gap between the injury that’s too urgent to wait for the family physician and the life-threatening situation that merits a trip to the emergency room. It is a medical specialty in which physicians (DOs and MDs) care for patients with acute illnesses or injuries which require immediate medical attention. While not usually providing long-term or continuing care, emergency medicine physicians diagnose a variety of illnesses and undertake acute interventions to resuscitate and stabilize patients.

2. History & Criteria for Urgent Care facilities. The initial urgent care centers opened in the 1970s. Since then, this sector of the healthcare industry has rapidly expanded to an approximately 10,000 centers. The Urgent Care Association of America established criteria for urgent care centers in April 2009 - The Certified Urgent Care Center designation. These criteria define scope of service, hours of operation, and staffing requirements. A qualifying facility must accept walk-in patients of all ages during all hours of operation. It should treat a "broad-spectrum" of illnesses and injuries, and have the ability to perform minor procedures.

3. For conditions like that are not life-threatening but do need attention quickly, there are urgent care centers. Urgent care centers are for non-emergency illnesses or injuries when your regular doctor can't treat you right away or if you don't have a doctor in the area. • The biggest advantage of the urgent care is avoiding the emergency rooms of local hospitals, where waiting times can be prolonged for 6 - 8 hours or longer due to the care being delivered to critically ill patients. • As an alternative to the hospital emergency room, urgent care is capable of diagnosing and treating minor medical emergencies. Often times, patients can be seen and treated in an urgent care clinic in less than an hour WHY urgent care is needed WWW.MEDICALBILLINGSTAR.COM

4. WHERE URGENT CARE IS NEEDED Allergies Possible conditions that may prompt a visit to urgent care are earaches, wounds requiring stitches, sprains and minor broken bones and minor cuts from accidents or falls, sore throat or cough, mild to moderate asthma, urinary tract infections and other minor infections like… Cold, Flu, Fever Dizziness Insect Bites Sprains

5. Is your urgent care center unable to cope with billing pressures? Urgent care billing is tough business. It takes experience and a little more effort than eight hours a day, and a dozen coffee breaks in between, to generate profit and drive down losses. Most urgent care practices and centers lose out on revenue due to bloopers and no clear understanding of generic rules for payment. This is where we come in to help you cope with the pain and pressure of getting your claims paid! WWW.MEDICALBILLINGSTAR.COM