HMN 2025: How Urgent care visits usually linked to inappropriate prescribing

Urgent care visits are sometimes related to inappropriate prescriptions of antibiotics, glucocorticoids, and opioids, in keeping with a analysis letter published on-line within the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Shirley Cohen-Mekelburg, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues examined inappropriate antibiotic, glucocorticoid, and opioid prescribing throughout pressing care visits in a cross-sectional study of outpatients of all ages with an pressing care place-of-service code from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2022. Data included represented greater than 270 million Americans and 12.9 million Medicare supplemental beneficiaries.

A complete of 10,773,218 sufferers from 22,426,546 pressing care visits had been recognized. The researchers discovered that 12.4%, 9.1%, and 1.3% of visits led to antibiotic, glucocorticoid, and opioid prescription fills, respectively.

For visits for higher respiratory and urinary tract infections, antibiotics had been discovered to be at all times applicable for 58.2% and 63.9%, respectively; antibiotic prescriptions had been incessantly stuffed for never-appropriate indications, together with otitis media, genitourinary indicators and signs, and acute bronchitis (30.66%, 45.7%, and 15.0%, respectively).

Glucocorticoid prescription fills had been usually inappropriate, though generally prescribed at visits for higher respiratory infections, sinusitis, and acute bronchitis (11.9%, 23.9%, and 40.8%, respectively).

At visits for nonback musculoskeletal ache, stomach ache and digestive signs, and sprains and strains, opioid prescription fills had been frequent, though usually inappropriate (4.6%, 6.3%, and 4.0%, respectively).

“Urgent care continues to display inappropriate antibiotic, glucocorticoid, and opioid prescribing, reinforcing the necessity for multifaceted applications to cut back inappropriate prescribing and potential hurt,” the authors write.

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