Urgent Care Update No Appointment Needed: The Resurgence of Urgent Care Centers in the United States Urgent message: A new report from the California HealthCare Foundation, excerpted here, examines how the growth of urgent care is influencing delivery of healthcare—and what the prospects for the future of the industry might be. Prepared for the California HealthCare Foundation by Robin M. Weinick, PhD and Renée M. Betancourt, BA Introduction care centers. Among these, urgent care centers have emerged to fill a specific niche in the healthcare de- livery system. Urgent care centers first opened in the United States in the early 1980s. The in- dustry declined, and then expanded in the mid-1990s. Since then, the industry has grown rapidly, to between 12,000 and 20,000 centers today. 1 By one estimate, ap- proximately two new urgent care centers open in the United States each week. 2 he days of having a fam- ily doctor in town who cared for all of a patient’s health needs are long gone. In their place, an array of services and pro- viders has developed to meet patients’ primary care needs, increasingly placing the burden on the con- sumer to make the appro- priate choice. This proliferation of ER Primary Health choices includes primary Care Retail Center Clinic care practices with one, sev- URGENT CARE eral, or many physicians; community health centers; large multispecialty group Urgent Care Centers and practices that provide pri- the Healthcare Delivery mary care; hospital emer- System gency departments and, more recently, freestanding Urgent care centers are uniquely positioned in the emergency departments; retail clinics; and urgent healthcare delivery system. Table 1 shows their rela- © iStockPhoto.com T Excerpts reprinted with permission from the California HealthCare Foundation, 2007. w w w. j u c m . c o m JUCM T h e J o u r n a l o f U r g e n t C a r e M e d i c i n e | N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 7 35