Page 35 - Delaware Medical Journal - January/February 2020

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
for them to connect with their local urgent centers and let them know that they are open to taking new patient referrals,”
says Christine Donohue-Henry, MD, ChristianaCare.
NOWmed Walk-In Urgent Care in Jersey City has a list of PCPs that it provides to patients who don’t currently have a PCP relationship, says NOWmed’s CEO, Tyeese L. Gaines, DO. How do PCPs get on the list? Sometimes it’s physicians themselves coming to NOWmed to introduce themselves, sometimes it’s a marketing liaison, sometimes it’s a phone call. Reaching out to your local facility in any way can make all the difference next time an urgent care doctor wants to make a referral, Gaines says.
If an urgent care center doesn’t keep a referral list, try building a personal relationship with its providers. NUC
doesn’t have formal referral relationships, but Horowitz knows many PCPs in the community and has a handle on who does or doesn’t have openings for new patients — so when he sees a patient who lacks a PCP, he makes an effort to recommend the patient give that practice a call.
Prioritize the relationship once you’ve established it. Urgent care doctors will send patients to those PCPs who make it easy — by being responsive to calls or offering short- notice appointments, for example, says Gaines.
Reserve some appointment slots each day for patients with urgent care needs. That’s the approach used both at ChristianaCare and at Delaware Family Care, according to Diehl and Donohue-Henry. This helps preserve PCP visits as an option for urgent
needs. “It is preferable for a patient to contact their primary care physician before going to an urgent care center,” Donohue-Henry notes.
Accommodate walk-ins if you’re able, and make sure you advertise the availability of walk-in appointments to your patients, the inforMD industry blog recommends. It may be equally helpful to open early some days or add a half-day on Saturdays.
At every appointment, talk to patients about recent urgent care visits. “We really have to try to educate our patients” about the importance of keeping their PCPs in the loop, says Diehl. “We try to get information on every single place they’ve been seen
in the interim and we try to make sure we see a tracker of medications and treatments.”
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Del Med J | September/October 2019 | Vol. 91 | No. 5 35