How to Boost Urgent Care Activity During Slow Times
You want your urgent care clinics to stay busy.
Since many people visit urgent care before or after work or school, or times when doctor’s offices are closed -- your clinic might see slow times midday and particularly in the early afternoon.
Not only will you want to think about slow hours, but your slow and busy seasons of the year - summer time can bring lower patient volume due to lower incidence of cold and flu. Back to school might include an influx of school-age patients who need physicals for sports and recreational activities.
“Typically urgent care is slowest during the warm months, once early spring allergies have calmed,” says Misti Bowers, RN, BSN, MSN, COO of Noon Health. “Of course, this is location dependent … Florida, for example, might be really busy during summer with people traveling there.”
How do you boost activity during your slow times?
One strategy is to develop a tool that shares information about wait times on your clinics’ website and social channels. This way you empower patients to choose your slow times for their visits -- you get a boost in traffic and they minimize their wait times.
Adding or expanding occupational medical offerings is another way to increase activity during your slow times. Schedule your occupational medicine services during your slower times of day.
“Onsite visits align well with slow times - flu shots, for example,” Bowers says. “Clinic staff could go to an employer they partner with and give employee flu shots during those down times.”
In addition to the tips above, you can use downtime to improve your services, and consider questions like:
● Are we using the most effective record-keeping and patient data technology?
● Do our patients have access to the most effective patient engagement tools?
● Are our billing and revenue cycle practices effective for our needs?
● Are our telemedicine offerings what they should be? Could we enhance this to encourage more visits during our slow times?
● How else can we effectively market and get involved with our community?
Inevitably there will be slow times for your urgent care clinics, as with any business, but the benefits to your patients, emergency department and your brand outweigh occasional downtime.
If you want expert support on your urgent care strategy, contact us. Noon Health has the experience to ensure your walk-in clinics get the key results and profitability you want.