Practice Management Getting the Word Out: An Introduction to Urgent Care Advertising Urgent message: Unlike many other practice models, urgent care must appeal directly to the consumer to stay ‘top of mind’ and be the first option the patient considers when a need arises. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc tail” delivery models. A clean facility, talented staff, and ef- ficient processes matter little if there are few patients com- ing through the door. Positive word of mouth will make or break a business long-term, but in order to ac- quire new patients and reach critical mass—particularly for a start-up practice—paid ad- vertising is also necessary. Introduction to Urgent Care Advertising rgent care is a healthcare delivery channel built around the needs of consumers—“retail,” from a marketing per- spective—with convenient locations, evening and week- end hours, walk-in service, the capability to treat a range of illness or injury, and one simple bill. From an accounting per- spective, most of an urgent care center’s costs are fixed; rent, utilities, and staff and provider salaries must be paid regardless of the num- ber of patients seen on any given day. As a result, the key driver of urgent care profitability is visit counts. The more patients an urgent care center sees, generally, the more profitable that cen- ter will become. In order to drive those visits, urgent care must be vis- ible and known in the community, just like other “re- U w w w. j u c m . c o m Purpose of Urgent Care Advertising © iStockPhoto.com The purpose of urgent care advertising is to attain “top of mind” awareness in the field of potential patients, such that if consumers have a mi- nor illness or injury, they will think of the urgent care cen- ter as the first place to go. Urgent care advertising must convey what differentiates urgent care from other med- ical providers (such as primary care, emergency rooms, and store-based clinics) while educating consumers as to the occasions when they would use urgent care. 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 | M a r c h 2 0 0 9 27