From the UCA CEO

It’s believed that Urgent Care (UC) was born early in the 1980s, likely as the brainchild of Bruce Irwin, MD. He was an emergency room physician who saw “many people were coming to the emergency room with problems that could have been cared for in a less expensive and more convenient manner.”1 He opened a facility to do just that, which became American Family Care, the nation’s largest Urgent Care provider. Dr. Bruce Irwin passed away in 2023, but his insights on why Urgent Care was needed at that time …
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I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season and that your centers are full of patients…but also that you and your colleagues have managed to stay healthy! For the Urgent Care Association (UCA), the College of Urgent Care Medicine (CUCM), the Urgent Care College of Physicians (UCCOP), and the Urgent Care Foundation (UCF), Q1 is Urgent Care Convention ramp-up time, leading toward our favorite time of year when we all get to gather and see each other in person. There’s nothing like those few days together. This year from …
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Clarity is a good thing, but achieving clarity isn’t always easy. It requires a deep understanding, and reaching that depth takes time and energy. It’s taken us a few years. In 2022, we got clarity around the role of the Urgent Care Association (UCA). For a long time, we tried hard to do anything that anyone in Urgent Care needed, and that led to a lot of good work but also a very unclear identity. Now we know: We are here to ensure the advancement and long-term success of Urgent …
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For as long as I can remember, Urgent Care has defined itself in the context of something else. We’re “more than primary care but less than emergency,” and “we’re like those drugstore clinics but we can do a lot more.” Or “we fill a gap in on-demand access.” I guess that is necessary when you are new and small and unknown. The problem with this kind of definition is that it’s so other-dependent. The way we talk about ourselves often sounds like it would be better if no one needed …
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Before I jump into this column, I want to mention our recent Advocacy victory: getting a mention of Urgent Care into the Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services publication of the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. If you want more details on why this is a big deal, you can listen to the 2 interviews I did with Eric Zimmerman (our lobbyist team leader) on the Urgent Care Leadership Podcast (found anywhere you get your podcasts). I want to give a monumental shout-out to the many Urgent Care Association (UCA) …
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