Urgent Care Use Rises While ED Use Declines: Employer Claims Analysis

Published on February 2, 2026

New analysis from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) found that urgent care utilization is increasing, reducing demand that might otherwise fall to emergency departments (EDs). From 2018 to 2022, urgent care utilization among people with employer-sponsored insurance increased 34.5% over the 5-year period from 90 visits per 1,000 people in 2018 to 156 visits per 1,000 in 2022. At the same time, ED visit rates declined by 2.5% from 176 visits per 1,000 people to 172 visits per 1,000, and primary care visit growth remained modest at 4.8%. Urgent care spending also increased by 51%, according to HCCI’s claims analysis of nearly 200 million insured members. This growth was driven primarily by higher utilization rather than higher prices, which is evidence of strong consumer demand and the healthcare ecosystem’s increasing reliance on urgent care to divert non-emergent cases away from higher-cost emergency settings. In 2021 at the height of the pandemic, urgent care visits for COVID-19 reached 10.2 million, and infectious disease exposure and respiratory-related issues accounted for half of all urgent care visits by 2022.

Delivering on the promise: The average price per urgent care visit increased 12.4% from $195 to $220, only slightly less than the rate of ED price growth from $1,988 to $2,256 per visit (13.5% growth). What’s more telling is that urgent care consistently delivered care at a fraction of ED costs for common conditions in 2022, in some cases as much as 10 times less in terms of total cost as well as patient out-of-pocket cost.