Marketplace

HCA Healthcare is making significant investments in the Florida healthcare market, with their latest move being to purchase MD Now Urgent Care. Adding those 59 locations comes on the heels of an announcement in November that the company plans to build three new hospitals in Florida, where it already serves 6.4 million patients through 400 affiliated cites across the state. The company says it’s the largest urgent care provider in Florida. Though just made public, …

While attempts to offer behavioral health services in an urgent care setting (or even using an urgent care approach) have failed to gain traction, that doesn’t mean the idea lacks merit. And with emergency rooms struggling with the dual burden of COVID-19 and staffing shortages, whatever community resources are available to decrease the need for people in a mental health crisis to head to the ED could be impactful. That’s exactly what’s happening in the …

Just last week we shared a story illustrating how poor access to multiple healthcare options, especially urgent care, can leave rural and tertiary communities with few choices other than the emergency room and, consequently, vulnerable to exorbitant bills for nonemergent problems. Fast Pace Urgent Care apparently recognized this as well, as it recently announced acquisition of a certified rural health provider with 15 walk-in clinics. JUCM has been tracking the opportunities that could exist for …

In a perfectly balanced system, patients who have nonemergent complaints would hop in the car and walk through the doors of an urgent care center shortly thereafter (and, most likely, be back home within the hour). If they truly had a more severe issue, they could go to a hospital emergency room uncluttered with people who don’t really need to be there. That ideal doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual options of many patients, however, as …

Efficiency and accessibility have always been two key attributes that set urgent care apart from traditional primary care. With primary care providers in short supply these days, however, some healthcare consumers are finding urgent care centers to be essential to meeting their needs. Action News Now reported the story of one such family in Redding, CA, who found it next-to impossible to find a new PCP for their 80-year-old matriarch who had recently relocated to …

Generation Z and Millennial healthcare consumers are staying away from traditional primary care practices in ever-growing numbers according to new research by the communication firm R/GA. Future of Health Experiences reveals that 40% of Gen Z survey respondents said they visit a primary care provider either once a year “or never or rarely.” The same is true of around one third of Millennials. Rather, they’re more inclined to seek care the moment they need it, …

JUCM and JUCM News have been tracking Walmart’s unsuccessful efforts to become a go-to destination for their customers’ healthcare needs for years. The idea that shoppers would appreciate the convenience of getting a strep test or a flu shot where they buy tires simply hasn’t caught on among healthcare consumers. Now Dollar General apparently thinks it has a shot at getting the idea right among its acknowledged customer base of lower-income, largely rurally located Americans. …

Just a few short years ago, it appeared that tech innovator Apple had plans to veer away from its expertise by entering the brick-and-mortar healthcare marketplace. As JUCM News reported at the time, it started by hiring more than 40 physicians to provide on-site care for employees—but also to advise the company on future healthcare strategies. The idea was that they would ultimately launch primary care locations for the general public. Now it appears the …

Freestanding emergency rooms have been the bane of many urgent care operator’s existence—and a source of outrage for patients who wind up getting stuck with a hefty and unexpected bill after seeking care at such facilities. Legislative bodies in multiple states have taken steps to prevent freestanding ED operators from hitting patients with surprise bills while trying to mandate price transparency, but Colorado has done them one step better. The state is incentivizing administrators to …

As JUCM and JUCM News readers know, Walmart has taken any number of stabs at trying to establish a successful healthcare business (all to no avail, at this point). Having failed to gain traction with physical Walmart Health locations, they’ve now gone the virtual route by acquiring telehealth provider MeMD and parted ways with a number of Walmart Health senior executives in the process. Whether you view the latest move as evolution in its strategy …