Another Urgent Care Operation Goes Mobile

It may be premature to call it a trend, but stories of urgent care operators taking their services directly to patients continue to pop up around the country. It’s becoming a more appealing prospect to payers, too. Most recently, Mercy Care Plan granted its members access to DispatchHealth in the Phoeniz, AZ metropolitan area. The service allows patients who may be too ill or frail to travel to the emergency room or an urgent care center to stay home while a provider comes to them. DispatchHealth, whose CEO is a former emergency physician, says it aims to offer a level of care equal to “lower-acute” ED visits (similar to complaints that might draw patients to an urgent care center). An unintended benefit is that home visits by clinicians offer care teams insight into any environmental obstacles to healing or general well-being. Like many brick-and-mortar urgent care centers, the service is available 7 days a week, from 8 am until 8 pm. Services include on-site suturing, IV fluids and medication administration, UTI treatment, catheter insertion, and mobile imaging, if needed.