Patients Flock to Urgent Care for Sexually Transmitted Infections in Ever-Growing Numbers

The relative anonymity and immediacy of urgent care make it an attractive option for patients who are concerned they could have a sexually transmitted infection. It should come as no surprise, then, that urgent care visits for STIs have increased steadily. According to a new study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, visits related to testing or treatment for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and unspecified diagnosed STIs all increased between 2010 and 2014 in U.S. urgent care centers. Chlamydia was the biggest growing concern, with a six-fold increase in visits for already-diagnosed infection and a 1.5-fold increase in testing during the study period. There was also a six-fold increase in the number of visits for already-diagnosed unspecified STIs. Visits related to testing for gonorrhea and already-diagnosed gonorrhea increased two-fold and three-fold, respectively. Researchers arrived at their results by assessing data from MarketScan commercially insured medical claims for urgent care visits in 2010, 2012, and 2014. JUCM published a comprehensive article on patients presenting to urgent care with concern over a possible STI. You can read STDs: Assessment and Treatment in Urgent Care in our archive.