A recent study of urgent care clinic visits involving more than 22 million U.S. patient visits from 2018 to 2022 found many cases of inappropriately prescribed antibiotics, glucocorticoids, and opioids for common conditions. For antibiotics, there were high rates of prescribing for “never appropriate” indications such as otitis media (31%), genitourinary signs and symptoms (46%), and acute bronchitis (15%).
The study identified 10.8 million patients involved in 22.4 million urgent care visits from January 2018 to December 2022: 56% were female and the median age was 34, with 12.4% of visits resulting in antibiotic prescription fills, 9.1% in glucocorticoid fills, and 1.3% in opioid fills.
Glucocorticoid prescriptions were generally inappropriate for visits related to upper respiratory infection (12%), sinusitis (24%), and acute bronchitis (41%), while opioid prescriptions were generally inappropriate for visits related to non-back musculoskeletal pain (5%), abdominal pain and digestive symptoms (6%), and sprains and strains (4%).
For antibiotics, appropriateness was based on “established consensus schemes.” For glucocorticoids, appropriateness was based on studies showing that their use was “generally inappropriate for upper respiratory infections, sinusitis, acute bronchitis, infectious diseases, and otitis media,” and opioid prescriptions were deemed “generally inappropriate” for most diagnoses.
The primary outcome was inappropriate prescription fills for all three types of drugs for the 10 most common CCSR categories.
A previous study of respiratory diagnoses published in September 2018 found inappropriate antibiotic prescribing among 16% of urgent care visits versus 6% of office visits and 5% of emergency setting visits, where antibiotic stewardship programs are more established.
According to The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine: “the incidence of lawsuits for emergency medicine physicians is approximately 7.5% annually, with only 1.5% resulting in payments. Although urgent care claims are not tracked nationally on a large scale, the consensus is that urgent care risk probably lies somewhere between emergency medicine and family medicine, although some argue that it may even be higher due to the lack of advanced diagnostics and variable training of urgent care clinicians … Before all else, each of us has a responsibility to make a commitment to keeping up with best practice and established guidelines as they pertain to urgent care. Several educational resources are available that define best practices in urgent care. The scope of competencies in urgent care is broad. Staying up to date requires a commitment to lifelong learning in your identified area of practice.”
If you or a loved one may have been harmed as a result of urgent care medical malpractice in the United States, you should promptly find a medical malpractice lawyer in your state who may investigate your urgent care malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a medical malpractice case against an urgent care facility, if appropriate.
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