How Urgent Care Fills the Gap Between ER and Primary Care
Many American adults don’t have a primary care physician. In fact, the rate steadily declined from 2002 to 2015, and 44% of twenty-somethings don’t have a primary care doctor.
Meanwhile, emergency rooms are slammed at an all-time high, especially in the time of the COVID pandemic. Simultaneously, COVID has made some feel hesitant to go to the ER for fear of exposure to the virus.
In this increasingly complex healthcare landscape, urgent care facilities can help hospital systems bridge the gap between primary care and ER visits, serving more patients more effectively while growing your hospital brand.
"Urgent care is something hospital systems need to be thinking about,” says Allen Bible, DPT, FACHE, President, Noon Health. “This is a necessary access point to have in a strategic plan.”
Urgent care clinics are walk-in friendly with more open hours than doctors’ offices. They can reduce traffic to hospital emergency rooms, as many ER visits can be safely handled in the clinic setting instead. Illnesses and injuries like cuts, burns, headaches, minor fractures, and sprains are examples of conditions that commonly end up in the ER instead of being more quickly and efficiently resolved at an urgent care clinic.
“For so many patients, the level of care they need doesn’t warrant everything the ER has to offer,” Bible says. “We can handle it in an urgent care setting, thus offloading ER traffic and allowing ER staff to be more efficient, focusing on sicker patients.”
This saves money and time for patients and hospitals alike. Both primary care and urgent care play a role in reducing ER volume in the long term by preventing acute conditions from progressing to medical emergencies.
Even for those who do have a primary care doctor, it may not always be quick enough to see that person when needed, opening another avenue of business opportunity for urgent care based on convenience. It can take two weeks to see your doctor and can be a challenge to get a same-day appointment. If you’re a new patient, it can take even longer.
An urgent care facility can see many new patients every week. Since they also accept walk-ins, they’re the the quickest non-ER care option. That’s important and necessary for the current climate of COVID testing, and other health issues that aren’t necessarily emergencies, but shouldn’t go weeks without being treated, like UTIs or the flu.
Urgent care clinics developed under your hospital brand aren’t meant to replace primary care. Instead they provide an opportunity for patients to get connected with providers in your network who can serve their health care needs. Often doctors are hesitant to refer patients to national walk-in clinic brands because they market themselves as a replacement for regular doctors visits. When developed correctly, urgent care clinics offer after-hours services that your physician networks trust to meet same-day needs while encouraging patients to schedule follow-up appointments with a primary care doctor. If they don’t have one, urgent care staff will direct them to connect with in-network physicians.
Now is a great time to facilitate this process. Millennials, a group that has traditionally drifted away from primary care providers, are heading toward middle age and chronic health conditions. That means they’re going to need more primary care support from providers who know them and their health histories.
If you’re ready to expand your hospital brand with urgent care clinics -- contact us today. We’re experienced in walking large hospital systems through the process -- whether you need comprehensive management through Noon Health or real estate support through Noon Development.