Urgent care medicine is one of the fastest growing medical specialties in the USA. The trend toward the rapid growth of the urgent care industry has been fueled by the American public demand for convenient and timely access to medical care. Urgent care differs from emergency medicine in that urgent care centers are generally not located in hospitals, and urgent care centers are designed to care for illnesses and injuries that need timely treatment but are not true emergencies.
Most urgent care centers are started by physicians or hospitals. A few entrepreneurial non-physicians have been successful starting urgent care centers, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
The following list of suggestions for starting an urgent care center are not meant to be complete, but will give the person considering starting an urgent care center a place to start.
Urgent Care Association of America Conference: The most important action item for anyone considering starting an urgent care center is to attend an urgent care startup conference. UCAOA puts on two full-day conferences on the topic of starting an urgent care center each year. Experienced and successful urgent care operators share freely about what it takes to successfully start an urgent care center. Talks are very informative and the networking opportunities are worth the price of admission.
Write a Business Plan: Anyone thinking about starting an urgent care center should spend the time to sit down and write a business plan. The discipline of thinking through the many issues involved in starting an urgent care.
Find the Ideal Urgent Care Community: You will want to find a city that has at least 40,000 people in the area and does not have any other urgent care centers in the community. Finding the ideal location may be difficult. But if you choose a community that is already well-served with urgent care access, your chances of success will diminish.
Choose an Urgent Care Location: It is not only important to find a proper community, but it is also important to find the correct street address for your urgent care center. A freestanding building on a busy thoroughfare is critical. Make sure that you can obtain adequate signage on the street.
Market Your Urgent Care: You will need to determine the most cost-effective method to make the community aware of the services available in the starting of your urgent care center. Various urgent care centers have found effective multiple different methods, including billboards, grand openings, newspaper advertisements, radio spots, drive-through flu shot clinics, newsletters, and many other original ideas. Be careful that you do not overspend on advertising, as many centers underestimate the amount of capital that will be needed to operate the urgent care center for the full year.
Select Services to Offer: A few urgent care centers focus only on serving walk-in patients from the community at large. Other urgent care centers choose to combine primary care medicine and walk-in services in the same facility. A common model for urgent care centers incorporates occupational medicine services in addition to walk-in services. Local corporations are often delighted to have local clinic that will serve their needs for treatment of workers compensation cases, post-offer physical examinations, drug screening, executive physical examinations, and provide other corporate medicine services.
Find a Billing Company: Urgent care billing is unique. You will want to find a biller that has specific knowledge in the intricacies of urgent care coding and billing. Urgent care centers started by hospitals often use hospital billers with no expertise or interest in urgent care billing and coding. Other urgent care physician entrepreneurs choose to use an inexperienced spouse or receptionist to bill claims. Either error will lead to serious financial difficulties, as inefficient billing and collections of revenues will strangle the financial lifeblood out of a startup urgent care center.
Select Charting and Billing Software: It is critical to find software that will make your urgent care center operations more efficient and successful. The best software will not overcome a poor location, a poor community or a poor urgent care business plan but poor software can synergize with other proper choices to propel your startup urgent care center to better and higher success.
Network with Experts in Starting Urgent Care Centers: Anyone starting out in a new field does well to spend time learning from others who have already found success in the field. Networking at UCAOA conferences is an excellent method to meet others who have succeed in the field of urgent care. Working with urgent care startup consultants such as Patrice Pash or Dr. John Koehler at National Med Network is another way to help ensure your success in the urgent care business.
Work Hard: If you are willing to pay the price of working extremely long hours and working harder than you ever imagined to reach success, then you might be a good person to consider starting an urgent care.
Good luck!
David Stern, MD, CPC is a consultant and speaker on urgent care coding and billin. He is CEO of Practice Velocity Urgent Care Solutions, providing electronic medical records and billing software a physician partner at Physicians Immediate Care with walk-in clinics in Chicago, Rockford and Joliet, Illinois and Bartlesville, Oklahoma and he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA).
» left by Jeff Prodowski, M from New England (2 years 121 days ago.)
We recently started an urgent care center. One point that we would emphasize is signage. It took us until three months after we opened to secure a permit from the city for our sign. Our advice would be two-fold 1) get sign permits early on and 2) don't ignore what they tell you at the UCAOA Urgent Care Startup Conference. Respond to this comment
» left by David Stern MD CPC(348) David Stern MD CPC (2 years 54 days ago.)
Great point! The two most critical points in choosing a locations are: 1) get on a busy street and 2) get great signage. Someone at the Fall UCAOA conference mentioned that they moved a struggling two-year-old urgent care two blocks away onto a busy street last May. Since then, the growth of the urgent care center has been explosive. Respond to this comment
» left by Becky Burress from Philadelphia (2 years 54 days ago.)
We just got back from the Urgent Care Association of America Fall Mini-Conference in Phoenix. It was a fantastic seminar, full of necessary information to start an urgent care center. Dr. Stern (article author), Dr. Shufeldt, Patrice Pash and Kevin Ralofsky were some of the speakers in the startup track. I am looking forward to the full-day session on starting an urgent care center prior to the National Urgent Care Convention of UCAOA in Daytona Beach, May 9-12, 2007. See you there. Respond to this comment
» left by David Stern MD CPC(348) David Stern MD CPC (2 years 54 days ago.)
Thanks Becky. It really was a great conference. The attendees were so excited and attentive. Great healthcare professionals, such as these, that will help UCAOA to accomplish its mission to improve urgent care delivery in America. The 125 attendees came from all Oregon, Florida, California, New England and everywhere in between. Their energy and enthusiasm was genuinely infectious. Respond to this comment
» left by Donna B. from Vermont (305 days 8 hours ago.)
I have worked in an Urgent Care Center for over 13 years now. Many differences of opinions on how we should evolve some of our processes. Can anyone help? Any NATIONAL guidelines that folks follow? Thanks. (Please do not include email address) Respond to this comment
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