The Wall Street Journal reports: As Urgent Care Grows, Watchdogs Circle
The number of emergency rooms has been falling in recent years, as the number of people heading into the ER has been climbing.
Urgent care centers — doc-in-a-box outfits that handle urgent health problems that aren’t life-threatening — have been growing to take up some of the slack.
But, this morning’s WSJ notes, urgent care has remained largely unregulated. Urgent care doctors and nurses do have to be licensed the same as health care providers anywhere else, but there are no national standards for what urgent care centers should offer, or what quality measures they should meet.
That looks likely to change. The Urgent Care Association of America recently made a deal with the Joint Commission, the group that accredits the nation’s hospitals, to accredit urgent care centers and publish national quality standards by 2010.
While many insurers already pay for some urgent care services, accreditation could lead to better reimbursements. “We’d look far more favorably at an urgent-care clinic that was accredited than one that wasn’t,” Troy Brennan, chief medical officer at Aetna, tells the WSJ. “[I]t means an organization is taking a hard look at a variety of safety issues that should be involved in caring for someone who is acutely ill.”
Health-Care Costs Easing
Workplace wellness programs may be reining in rising costs, a survey finds.
From: Inc.com | August 13, 2008 By: Michael GaddEmployer health-care costs are expected to rise at a slower pace in the year ahead, as more workplaces offer wellness programs and consumer-driven coverage options, according to Aon Consulting.
Based on a survey of more than 70 health-care insurers, the Chicago-based consulting firm estimates that that health-care costs will increase by 10.6 percent over the next 12 months, a 0.3 percent drop from last year and the lowest rate since the study was launched in 2001.
Rising prescription drug costs are also expected to ease, dropping by 0.3 percent for last year to 9.2 percent.
The study attributes the lower costs to an upturn in workplace wellness programs and consumer-driven coverage.
According to John Zern, the firm’s health and benefits director, employers could be doing more to combat rising health-care costs, in addition to wellness programs.
“This includes greater senior management support for these programs, better employee communications and more consistent cooperation from the medical community,” he said in a statement.