Urgent Care Boom is Boosting More Industries Than Healthcare

You’re accustomed to reading the latest good news about the urgent care industry here. Lately, you’re almost as likely to see it on your local TV stations and in the newspaper. But on a website called Shopping Centers Today (SCT)? Yes! And if you somehow came across the post we’re referring to, you’d know that members of the shopping center industry are thrilled to see urgent care continuing to prosper—and that more and more urgent care locations are landing on properties owned or operated by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), which publishes SCT. In fact, urgent care veteran Alan Ayers, MBA, MAcc, CEO of Velocity Urgent Care and practice management editor of JUCM, was part of a high-level panel discussion at the ICSC RECon meeting in Las Vegas this week. He joined Gary Weatherford, chief customer officer for GoHealth Urgent Care and David Werth, a director and broker with Cushman & Wakefield, to explore why urgent care has become so common—and successful—in retail spaces. For one thing, Mr. Ayers is quoted as pointing out in the article, the ubiquity of urgent care combined with the high visibility and potential patient traffic inherent in big retail locations is a perfect fit. Mr. Weatherford agreed, noting that “class-A retail space” is a top priority when his company is exploring potential new markets. While Mr. Ayers concluded that urgent care is “changing the face of healthcare,” the very appearance of him and Mr. Weatherford at a shopping center industry function demonstrates that its impact goes well beyond providing convenient, quality, cost-effective care. It’s also just good business.