After Riding the Bench Early on, Urgent Care Has Performed Like an All-Star During the Pandemic

Urgent care operators stood ready to pitch in as COVID-19 ravaged states throughout the U.S. early in the pandemic—but were largely unable to do so thanks to mystifying decisions on where testing supplies and the like would be allocated. According to research conducted by Experity, however, that changed in a big way in 2020, when urgent care visits jumped 58%. In fact, as Experity CEO David Stern, MD, CPC explained to Healthcare IT News, urgent care centers saw record patient visits last year, with more than half being related to COVID-19. “This unmatched activity also drove an influx of visits from new patients, which presents an opportunity for post-pandemic business growth,” Stern said. The Experity research was based on data drawn from almost 5,000 urgent care clinics. (Full disclosure: Experity owns JUCM.)