Affordable medical care on an unscheduled, walk-in basis to treat patients who have an injury or illness that they decide requires prompt care but is not serious enough to warrant emergency room care
Why is urgent care important for health systems?
Urgent care has grown 6-7% annually over the last two decades. Consumers are still choosing to seek care through this channel instead of more expensive emergency departments or more inconvenient, primary care offices.
Urgent care is highly fragmented in many communities. There are over 9,000 urgent care centers across the United States. In 2012, one-quarter of these urgent care centers are owned by health systems, with the other three quarters, owned by other physicians or other investors.
Urgent care offers immediate access to new populations outside of system and provides a lower cost channel for care. Urgent care is the same cost for consumers as a primary care office and almost 70% less than the average ER.
How do health systems enter urgent care?
Health systems can acquire current urgent care centers, often paying up to 8 times EBIDTA for each urgent care facility. OR Health systems can build urgent care on their own.
Urgent Care Partners (UCP) provides strategy, design, activation, and operational expertise to rapidly set up urgent care centers for health systems and, once operational, transfer the urgent care operations and competencies to the health system.
It is the fundamental belief of UCP that health systems should lead the delivery of care that consumers want. However, in a dynamic market, health systems are quickly being left behind by retailers and other novel entrants. UCP sets up the health systems’ operations and teams to make sure they have the capabilities to compete in the future and offer the services consumers want and need.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
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