A compilation of 2022 and 2023 de novo urgent care center data shows a 7% decline in new locations: from 1,651 de novo centers in 2022 to 1,540 in 2023. A “de novo” center is a new urgent care location where services were not offered previously. The unit of measure is the physical site, meaning if an existing location already in operation happened to change ownership, such change is not counted as de novo growth. …
Read MoreRobust Urgent Care De Novo Growth Continues
The urgent care industry continues to add de novo centers, according to data from Experity and National Urgent Care Realty. Although de novo growth slowed in 2023 by 5%, 2023 de novos are still 16% higher than 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. In addition to continued overall growth of the industry, the data indicates structural changes in who is opening de novos. A “de novo” urgent care refers to a center that did not previously …
Read MoreTelehealth Adoption Rises Steadily in Urgent Care
Telehealth Adoption in Urgent Care has rose steadily throughout the years. View this graph with information provided by the Urgent Care Association.
Read MoreCenter Locations Double, Driven by Big Consumer Trends
Across the hills and valleys of healthcare, the rising power of the consumer has reshaped the landscape more than any other market shift in recent memory. Patient preferences are fueling demand for everything from virtual care to retail-store clinics. For urgent care, the innovations represent thrilling opportunity alongside equal measures of competition. The ratio of wins to losses will vary by market. Yet even with the large-scale disruption, urgent care has grown with intention, both …
Read MoreIn-Office Dispensing: The Good, the Bad, and the Unlikely
On paper (so to speak), in-office prescribing in the urgent care center would seem to be a no-brainer for all concerned: patients could avoid the time-consuming hassles of navigating the retail drugstore morass and head straight home with their medication, and providers could be assured that their patients got the right medication in a timely manner and could be the responsible parties to answer any questions they may have—all while collecting a modest profit. That’s …
Read MoreThere’s No Casual Approach to Improving Antibiotic Stewardship—but When You Make the Effort, It Works
Improving antibiotic stewardship was an industry-wide mandate even before a 2018 study indicated that urgent care appeared to be more likely than other settings to overprescribe for common infections. While the methodologies could be questioned, especially in their take on the nature of urgent care visits, the point was well taken. Since then, urgent care as a whole has sought to improve providers’ prescribing habits more aggressively than ever. The initial awareness campaigns did a …
Read MoreThat Notion That Urgent Care Centers Help Volume in the ED? It’s True
One of the key “selling” points of urgent care has always been that if patients who don’t have limb- or life-threatening concerns are able to get acute care someplace other than the emergency room, they would go there, thereby lowering cost, wait times, and risk associated with the ED. Now there’s evidence to support the first part of this premise, thanks to a new report from Mesirow Investment Banking. As seen in the graph below, …
Read MoreThe 10-Year Trend on UC Claim Lines Is Strong—in the City and in the Country
Click Here to download the PDF. Believe it or not, just a decade ago urgent care accounted for barely 6% of all claim lines in the United States. There was little difference between rural and urban settings, too. New research from FAIR Health1 shows that the picture changed dramatically in 2015, though, as the percentage of claim lines attributed to urgent care jumped nearly 5% in a single year and rural claims started to outpace …
Read MoreDespite Challenges, Urgent Care Acuity Remains High
There’s been a bit of discussion in the urgent care industry (including in JUCM articles of late) concerning a perceived degradation of acuity in urgent care practice. The worry is that in the service of getting a maximum number of patients in and out the door quickly, some patients with more than minimally complicated complaints are advised to visit the closest emergency room when they could just as safely (and more cost-effectively) be treated in …
Read MoreHealthcare Visits by Victims of Human Trafficking Are Limited, but Often Include Urgent Care
As noted in this month’s cover article (Human Trafficking in the Urgent Care Setting: Recognizing and Referring Vulnerable Patients), isolation is one of many tools perpetrators use to control victims of human trafficking. Certainly this includes limiting access to healthcare. Not surprisingly, when care is necessary it’s not likely to be sought in a primary care office. Rather, busy acute care sites that offer walk-in access and relative anonymity tend to be preferred—with urgent care …
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