Marketplace

HCA Healthcare has reached an agreement to buy 41 Texas urgent care centers from FastMed. The deal, which is expected to close over the summer, includes 19 FastMed and 22 MedPost locations in Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso—all told, home to some 6.7 million Texans. At present, HCA operates 268 urgent care centers across the country, while FastMed operates nearly 200 spread across five states. Terms of the deal have not been …

Regular readers of JUCM News and JUCM know that multiple drugstore chains, big box retailers, and others have tried hard to steal business away from urgent care. While pharmacy companies have had a modicum of success in drawing patients concerned they could have strep throat and the like, no one has really been able to establish a substantial foothold in the way urgent care has. That doesn’t stop other companies from trying, though. In fact, …

Members of the Liberty School District’s elementary school community don’t have to go far for care when illness or injury strikes in the middle of the school day; in fact, they don’t even have to leave the grounds. WFMJ in Youngstown, OH reports that as of a few weeks ago, the “Leopard MedClinic”—named for the school mascot but operated by QUICKmed Urgent care—is open and ready to see students with urgent care needs. The intent …

Urgent care has been riding high as the darling of venture capitalists for a few years now. To you, the reasons seem obvious: patients appreciate excellent care they can access more easily than in their primary care provider’s office at a fraction of the cost insurers would have to pay if their members went to the emergency room, for starters, and investors must see the value in that. That’s the insider’s view, but it could …

A company called Sollis Health swears they “don’t replace your primary care physician,” but is hoping patients won’t mind spending up to $6,000 a year for “membership-based, on-demand, and after-hours access.” An urgent care physician in Atlanta says he’s willing to see patients as many times as they’d like to come in for $100 per month. What the two have in common is a disdain for dealing with health insurance companies and the hope that …

As JUCM News readers know, Amazon has been trying for years (and by every method imaginable) to break into the healthcare marketplace, both virtually and in the brick-and-mortar space. Their most recent attempt to offer urgent care- and primary care-like services  in person started last August with spending $3.9 billion for 1Life Healthcare, including One Medical’s 125 locations. We still say “attempt” at this point because the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look …

First they hired a physician to serve as chief medical officer. Then they brought on another MD who had previously served as CMO for Walgreens. Now they’re sending out vans to store parking lots, where healthcare providers will offer many services typically available in drugstore clinics and urgent care centers. We should mention that the “they” in those sentences does not refer to an up-and-coming pharmacy clinic provider or a big-box store. It refers to …

There’s no debating that urgent care has had many ups and downs, as well as constant evolution since its inception. What started with entrepreneurial providers essentially creating a new way to practice medicine has revolutionized healthcare. Ownership structures have evolved right along with the industry, with hospital systems and venture capitalists recognizing the financial benefits, as well. It was inevitable, then, that the idea of franchising urgent care centers would come at some point. Forbes …

We’ve reported previously on the opportunity that rural hospital closures and cutbacks could present for urgent care operators to step in and thrive in communities in desperate need of healthcare options. New research out of the Penn State College of Medicine paints a broader picture of the potential impact not just for affected communities and prospective new providers, but for what they term “bystander hospitals”—facilities within a 30 mile radius of one that has closed. …