Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Categorization of Codes Most Frequently Used in Urgent Care

International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes—maintained by the World Health Organization and published in the United States by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—standardize the categorization and reporting of patient diagnoses. Currently, U.S. healthcare operators use the ICD-10 edition. The analysis above examines 2023 urgent care visits logged by users of Experity’s electronic medical record, revealing that 28,686 diagnosis codes were documented in urgent care patient medical records. While it’s logical to conclude …

Prescription Duration for Urgent Care Patients

Whereas primary care is focused on prevention and management of chronic conditions, urgent care has historically been defined as episodic treatment for non-acute or acutely rising conditions—which are not medical emergencies but generally call for evaluation within 24 hours. As such, it would be expected that urgent care providers would prescribe medications only for the duration of a current infection or until a patient can follow-up with a specialist or primary care physician, for example. …

Urgent Care De Novo Growth by Operator Size, 2022-2023

A compilation of 2022 and 2023 de novo urgent care center data shows a 7% decline in new locations: from 1,651 de novo centers in 2022 to 1,540 in 2023. A “de novo” center is a new urgent care location where services were not offered previously. The unit of measure is the physical site, meaning if an existing location already in operation happened to change ownership, such change is not counted as de novo growth. …

How Urgent Care is Becoming More Corporatized

In 2023, the urgent care industry added 1,057 de novo locations—new sites that did not previously exist. But these new centers are far more likely to be owned by larger entities with 10 or more units, also called “enterprise” operators. In fact, according to data from National Urgent Care Realty analyzed by Experity, for the past 4 years, 10+ unit operators have been the drivers of new rooftop growth. Prior to 2020, the industry was led …

Robust Urgent Care De Novo Growth Continues

The urgent care industry continues to add de novo centers, according to data from Experity and National Urgent Care Realty. Although de novo growth slowed in 2023 by 5%, 2023 de novos are still 16% higher than 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. In addition to continued overall growth of the industry, the data indicates structural changes in who is opening de novos. A “de novo” urgent care refers to a center that did not previously …

Flu Season Begins For Urgent Care

In late November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that the number of healthcare visits related to influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was particularly high among children, causing concern in communities about this “tripledemic” of respiratory illness. According to Experity data, the first week of October ushered in flu season for urgent care, when positivity rates for the three viruses among all urgent care center visits began to rise.1 Since …

Urgent Care Scope of Services

Same-day ambulatory healthcare services are the hallmark of urgent care (UC). Because UC clinicians care for a wide range of conditions and injuries, they need to be proficient in a broad scope of immediate intervention services. In its latest white paper, the Urgent Care Association (UCA) noted that more organizations are moving to a staffing model with nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) serving as the primary providers on-site, rather than physicians. This model grew …

Telehealth Adoption Rises Steadily in Urgent Care

Telehealth Adoption in Urgent Care has rose steadily throughout the years. View this graph with information provided by the Urgent Care Association.

Center Locations Double, Driven by Big Consumer Trends

Across the hills and valleys of healthcare, the rising power of the consumer has reshaped the landscape more than any other market shift in recent memory. Patient preferences are fueling demand for everything from virtual care to retail-store clinics. For urgent care, the innovations represent thrilling opportunity alongside equal measures of competition. The ratio of wins to losses will vary by market. Yet even with the large-scale disruption, urgent care has grown with intention, both …

In-Office Dispensing: The Good, the Bad, and the Unlikely

On paper (so to speak), in-office prescribing in the urgent care center would seem to be a no-brainer for all concerned: patients could avoid the time-consuming hassles of navigating the retail drugstore morass and head straight home with their medication, and providers could be assured that their patients got the right medication in a timely manner and could be the responsible parties to answer any questions they may have—all while collecting a modest profit. That’s …

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