More parents are bringing their kids to urgent care, according to new national trend data captured in a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The percentage of children and adolescents (17 years old and younger) who had at least 1 visit to an urgent care center or a retail clinic in the past 12 months increased from 21.6% in 2021 to 28.4% in 2022. When CDC broke down the data into 3 age groups (age 0-5; age 6-11; age 12-17), it found that each group individually demonstrated a noticeable rise in visits by 2022. In data for both years, kids aged 12-17 experienced the most visits. However, as depicted in a CDC QuickStats table, the year-over-year trend shows a larger jump in visits for those age 0-5.
More centers, more urgent care visits: According to data from Experity and National Urgent Care Realty, the industry witnessed 20% growth in “de novo” urgent cares (centers that did not previously exist) in the 2021 to 2022 time period. It stands to reason that a growing number of centers in local communities would offer parents more opportunities to bring their kids in for visits. What might be surprising about the CDC data is that the greatest visit growth came from the youngest patient group—the kids age 5 and under.