Marketplace

A company called Sollis Health swears they “don’t replace your primary care physician,” but is hoping patients won’t mind spending up to $6,000 a year for “membership-based, on-demand, and after-hours access.” An urgent care physician in Atlanta says he’s willing to see patients as many times as they’d like to come in for $100 per month. What the two have in common is a disdain for dealing with health insurance companies and the hope that …

As JUCM News readers know, Amazon has been trying for years (and by every method imaginable) to break into the healthcare marketplace, both virtually and in the brick-and-mortar space. Their most recent attempt to offer urgent care- and primary care-like services  in person started last August with spending $3.9 billion for 1Life Healthcare, including One Medical’s 125 locations. We still say “attempt” at this point because the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look …

First they hired a physician to serve as chief medical officer. Then they brought on another MD who had previously served as CMO for Walgreens. Now they’re sending out vans to store parking lots, where healthcare providers will offer many services typically available in drugstore clinics and urgent care centers. We should mention that the “they” in those sentences does not refer to an up-and-coming pharmacy clinic provider or a big-box store. It refers to …

There’s no debating that urgent care has had many ups and downs, as well as constant evolution since its inception. What started with entrepreneurial providers essentially creating a new way to practice medicine has revolutionized healthcare. Ownership structures have evolved right along with the industry, with hospital systems and venture capitalists recognizing the financial benefits, as well. It was inevitable, then, that the idea of franchising urgent care centers would come at some point. Forbes …

We’ve reported previously on the opportunity that rural hospital closures and cutbacks could present for urgent care operators to step in and thrive in communities in desperate need of healthcare options. New research out of the Penn State College of Medicine paints a broader picture of the potential impact not just for affected communities and prospective new providers, but for what they term “bystander hospitals”—facilities within a 30 mile radius of one that has closed. …

Specialty urgent care centers have proved to be challenging from a business standpoint, traditionally. Few (if any) orthopedic urgent care operations have been able to survive unless they were attached to a hospital system or larger, traditional orthopedic practice. Those, however, may be on the cusp of a growth—and that could make for some competition with the mainstream urgent care marketplace. As noted in a report from KSL TV, for example, Intermountain Healthcare’s Southwest Urgent …

Having already staked a solid claim to primary care by investing heavily in VillageMD and announcing its intention to build a thousand clinics within its pharmacies over the next 5 years, Walgreens is said to be looking at a merger with CityMD’s parent company Summit Health. Both Healthcare Dive and Bloomberg have reported that such a deal could be finalized within weeks, resulting in a company whose value would range from $5 billion and $10 …

Drugstore companies have had a fair degree of success offering some form of walk-in care for vaccinations and lower-acuity complaints. Big-box store operators keep trying but have yet to hit on a health concept that works. Now the parent company of a successful convenience store chain, QuikTrip, appears to be gaining some traction by providing more traditional urgent care services than one would find in a retail pharmacy. Having seen success with 11 such centers …