Urgent Care is Forging Inroads in Occ Med—but There’s Still Plenty of Room for Growth

Occupational medicine can be found in more than half of U.S. workplaces, according to newly published data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If data from the Urgent Care Association are any indication, many of the workers and employers who benefit can thank an urgent care operator for that; nearly 73% of respondents who took part in the UCA’s 2018 Benchmarking Report say they provide occ med services. The data from the CDC and UNC-Chapel Hill, published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, reflects 3,000 diverse workplaces, including for-profit, nonprofit, and government worksites of varying industry sectors and sizes across the country. Over 77% are considered “small employers,” defined as those with fewer than 100 employees for this survey. On the other hand, the likelihood that an employer would offer a health promotion program increased along with the number of employees; 92% of workplaces with ≥500 employees have a health promotion program. These figures provide insights into which employers in the area of your urgent care operations might be most amenable to starting an employee health program. If you don’t currently offer occ med services, you can get a good sense of what you need to start doing so by reading a JUCM article called Foundation Of Occupational Medicine In The Urgent Care Setting.