Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent Care Drives Growth in Health Systems

Dissatisfied patients who have flocked to urgent care rather than more traditional care locations are forcing health systems and clinics to reevaluate how they offer care, according to a new report in Becker’s Hospital Review. “Regardless of the clinical enterprise’s desire to connect everyone with a long-term physician relationship, responsive health systems will recognize they cannot form relationships through experiences that leave individuals unsatisfied. These relationships are particularly important at the individual’s first point of …

Dental Urgent Care Chain Wants a Bigger Bite of the Big Apple

Dental365, a chain of dental urgent care clinics affiliated with CityMD in and around New York City, has gone on a holiday shopping spree and plans to open five recently acquired locations early in 2018. Like traditional, physician-based urgent care, Dental365’s model is based on greater convenience on a walk-in basis, with many locations open 7 days a week, often with evening hours. The company says it sees an average of 1,400 new patients monthly …

Proposed Hospital Mergers Are Attributed to CVS, UnitedHealth Group Deals

It hasn’t been 2 weeks since the first of two healthcare megadeals was announced (CVS buying Aetna, followed closely by UnitedHealth Group announcing it was going to buy DaVita’s medical group), but they’re already being cited as the reason for consolidation in the hospital marketplace. Dignity Health in California and Colorado’s Catholic Health Initiative are expected to team up in a move that would have the combined system controlling some 700 care cites and 139 …

Follow-Up: Walgreens Expands Efforts to Offer Urgent Care Services

We told you in October that Walgreens was going to start offering services more aligned with urgent care than with traditional retail health services in Las Vegas. Now the pharmacy giant has announced broader plans in the urgent care sector: In addition to expanding those Las Vegas sites, they’re making similar moves in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. In each instance, they’ll be partnering with MedExpress (whose parent company, UnitedHealthCare, just announced plans to buy …

Update: CVS–Aetna Deal Will Have a Ripple Effect on Multiple Markets

If CVS’s $69 billion deal to buy Aetna goes through, one of the first things the company is expected to do is broadly expand its retail health clinic business—ultimately saving the company more than $1 billion annually, according to a report from Reuters. The presumed savings would flow out of efforts to improve access to preventative care through the CVS clinics. CVS has roughly 9,700 drugstores (though only a thousand or so have clinics), while …

Tis the Season for Giving Back—and Fostering Goodwill

Many urgent care operators promote their clinics on the basis that they’re entrenched in the heart of the community. This is the season to prove it. Lansing (MI) Urgent Care is already doing that by supporting the Greater Lansing Food Bank’s efforts to raise money and collect food and in-kind contributions for area residents in need as winter takes hold. In New Jersey, IMA Urgent Care Centers is collecting new, unused toys for the Toys …

Update: Amazon is Expected to Distribute Medical Devices and Supplies, not Medications

All the recent talk about Amazon’s plans to become a wholesale pharmacy distributor seems to have been exactly that—just talk—as industry analysts have learned the online retailer has no intentions (currently) to start storing and shipping medications. Rather, they expect the company to use the pharmacy licenses it obtained in 12 states recently for medical devices and supplies. The investment firm Jefferies learned that Amazon went so far as to tell officials in Tennessee and …

Attention Turns to Improving Rural Healthcare—and How Urgent Care Can Contribute

Rural healthcare is such an entity unto itself that Utah is in the midst of celebrating an official Rural Health Week right now, with the stated purpose of drawing attention to efforts to improve the care available to residents who live in less-traveled parts of the state. Coinciding with that, the American Hospital Association (AHA) is investigating what role urgent care can play in filling “access gaps” in medically underserved regions. AHA’s Task Force on …

Will Plans to Start Rx Deliveries Affect CVS’s Retail Clinics Strategy?

Amazon’s apparent plans to get into the pharmaceutical distribution business—the online retailer has already gotten permits that would pave the way in several states—may have pushed CVS to announce plans to start delivering medications the same day they’re prescribed in certain cities, and next-day everywhere early in 2018. The irony is that CVS has sunk untold resources into its retail clinic business, based on drawing more customers into their brick-and-mortar locations. This begs the question …

Market Forecast Shows Ongoing Growth of the Urgent Care Industry

The steady growth of the urgent care industry in the U.S. should continue for at least the next several years, according to a new market forecast from TMR Research. The growing proportion of the elderly population, the rise of chronic diseases that require occasional immediate attention, and increasing investment from both public and private parties will be primary drivers, according to the report. It defines urgent care centers as “walk-in or no appointment healthcare centers …