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Believe it or not, just a decade ago urgent care accounted for barely 6% of all claim lines in the United States. There was little difference between rural and urban settings, too. New research from FAIR Health1 shows that the picture changed dramatically in 2015, though, as the percentage of claim lines attributed to urgent care jumped nearly 5% in a single year and rural claims started to outpace urban claims as a portion of the whole data set. The last 3 years of the period tracked in the research (and the graph below) illustrate the industry’s resilience, as a couple of minor stumbles, one of which clearly was attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, were followed by strong recoveries—the last of which shows
urgent care accounting for nearly 14% of claim lines overall, with urban holding nearly 2% more of the claim lines than rural. The steady, balanced growth and relative equanimity between rural and urban settings speak not only to urgent care’s increasing popularity among healthcare consumers, but also its viability as a growth industry among diverse communities.
References
- FAIR Health. FH Healthcare Indicators and FH Medical Price Index 2023. An Annual Review of Place of Service Trends and Medical Pricing. March 29, 2023.
