Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

In Spite of Turbulence, the Forecast Is Sunny for the Urgent Care Market

No one would argue that the past 2 years have been easy for urgent care. First many operations were shut out of the running to receive adequate COVID-19 testing supplies. The same occurred in the early days after vaccine approval. Still, the industry adapted. Once testing supplies were available, operators established new procedures to maximize the number of patients could get tested safely and efficiently, whether that meant setting up in parking lots or selecting …

PAs Aren’t Just ‘Assisting’ in Providing Urgent Care

In this issue’s Health Law article, What’s the Best Policy for Unlocking an Urgent Care’s Doors when a Provider Isn’t Present? (page 19), author Alan Ayers, MBA, MAcc points to the capabilities of advanced practice providers as one rationale some urgent care operators use when opting to stay open for business when a physician isn’t present. You could even go a step further and make the argument that the degree of direct care provided by …

Yes, Disparities in Prescribing Exist in Urgent Care—but Which Disparities?

If you read Evaluation of Healthcare Disparities in Urgent Care: A Case Example for Bacterial Pneumonia—see page 23 of this issue—you know that the proportion of appropriate prescriptions written for an on-label medication (in this case, doxycycline for bacterial pneumonia) may differ among various demographic groups. While the conclusions of that study do not necessarily make a cause-and-effect connection, the data should inspire some analysis as to possible rationale for differences for care of various …

Will Urgent Care Visits return to ‘Normal’ as the Pandemic Turns Endemic?

In spite of the fact that urgent care was overlooked as an essential partner in the fight against COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, the virus had a major impact on the complaints that drove patients to visit an urgent care center. In fact, according to JUCM research, most of 2019’s top 5 chief complaints fell by at least half as a proportion of all urgent care visits. COVID-19, which was essentially a …

Telehealth Use Is Down from Its Peak—But the New Plateau Is Far Higher Than Pre-Pandemic Levels

Patients were more willing to use telehealth than ever in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data from a report published by McKinsey & Company, telehealth claims grew 7,800% between February 2020 and April 2020. They dropped precipitously just a couple of months later, but have since plateaued. What could be of interest to urgent care operators who are considering telehealth as a service option, especially as we’re in the midst of …

Meet the New Urgent Care Boss—Not the Same as the Old Boss

Back in the day, you probably would have been right to assume that the closest urgent care center was founded, owned, and run by a physician. Many other practices (primary care, pediatric…) would have been the same. Well, times have changed in a big way. The mavericks who simply wanted to find a better, more sensible way of practicing medicine and wound up creating a new industry are now employees of national and regional health …

Telemedicine Still Struggles to Catch on in Urgent Care

Some urgent care insiders view telemedicine as a natural fit for our industry—an opportunity to give patients even more convenient access to competent healthcare providers, thereby increasing engagement and resulting in more care for more patients. Others just don’t see how it would be applicable, or fear that remote visits could result in overprescribing (especially for antibiotics and pain medications). Judging from data just released through the Urgent Care Associations 2021 Summer Benchmarking Report, widespread …

Millennials Are Drifting Away from Primary Care—Just as They Need a Physician Most

There’s no gentle way to put it: Members of the Millennial generation simply are not as interested in having a traditional relationship with a primary care provider as their predecessors have been. That shouldn’t be surprising, though, given that each successive generation seems to drift farther from that model of care. Where 82% of Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) report having a primary care provider, the same can be said for only …

Pandemic Fluctuations: A Historic Drop, Then a Meteoric Rise in Patients Visits Per Day

Just to confirm, the COVID-19 pandemic has generally not been kind to the urgent care industry. Locations that could get their hands on testing supplies at the outset were inundated with patients clamoring to know if they had the virus. The many facilities that got shut out of test distribution chains suffered greatly, though—as did the industry as a whole. Now, even as case loads continue to climb again in many states, the public’s panic …

Is Specialization the Future of Urgent Care?

Urgent care has historically been viewed as a setting where patients could present with anything short of life- or limb-threatening complaints (though even those parameters have been stretched in dire situations.) And that identity has served the industry well, as evidenced by nearly constant growth over several decades. As time wore on, though, it became evident that there are business opportunities to be had by addressing niches with special needs. Occupational medicine is a prime …