Report Cites Cost Effectiveness, Speed of Service as Keys to Urgent Care Growth

Offering cost savings vs higher-acuity settings and getting patients in and out the door quickly are primarily responsible for the ongoing rapid growth of the urgent care market, according to a new market report from Transparency Market Research (TMR). “The service time…[is] better than in an emergency department. Additionally, the fee per visit paid by a patient, whether with health insurance or not, in urgent care centers is much lower than the fee paid in EDs,” it reads. “These advantages…are expected to increase the number of visits to urgent care centers, thus driving the growth of the global urgent care centers market.” While the report calls the market “highly fragmented” due to the great number of entities it comprises, it also notes that its attributes should be especially appealing to a volatile insurance market that has seen rapid increase in the insured population. Conversely, an expected physician shortage is likely to have consequences in the urgent care setting, as it is other settings. The report also notes that North America is the global leader in providing urgent care services, followed by Europe, Asia/Pacific, and “rest of the world,” in order.