Setting Up an Urgent Care Business Model: 5 Best Practices

Urgent care facilities serve as an important intermediary service for when a patient’s medical issue doesn’t warrant the emergency room but their primary care provider (PCP) is unavailable. If you’ve recognized a need for this healthcare bridge in your community and have considered opening your own, you’ll want to develop an urgent care business model first.

What Is Urgent Care’s Significance in Healthcare Today?

With PCP shortages only expected to worsen, urgent care facilities improve access for patients who may struggle to obtain timely primary care or have difficulty keeping appointments during regular business hours. These access barriers to primary care may account for why younger generations are more likely to utilize urgent care facilities than PCPs.

Use of urgent care centers as a source of ongoing medical management isn’t generally advised. However, these types of facilities are recognized as a helpful mechanism for reducing the number of noncritical cases impacting emergency room wait times.

Is Urgent Care a Good Business to Invest In?

The urgent care industry is growing faster than ever, with no indications that growth will slow anytime soon. That demand may make the business a worthy investment, but only for those who plan carefully and prepare for long hours. This process includes selecting a location and complying with applicable laws and regulations, such as Certificate of Need (CON) requirements

To ensure that your customers can use their insurance to pay for that ear infection treatment on opening day, you’ll need payer contracts established in advance. However, before starting the time-consuming work of developing and initiating these specific measures, it’s advised that you set up your business model.

Setting Up an Urgent Care Business Model: 5 Best Practices

Though you may have looked up the checklist for your business plan, urgent care clinics are healthcare facilities that depend on patient satisfaction and positive outcomes (as with any other health facility). Here are five tips that go beyond the creation of your LLC to help your business succeed.

1. Be Mission Driven

Mission statements may vary among institutions but the intent is largely the same: efficiently deliver high-quality care. This patient-centered approach sets the tone for all business engagements, increasing the likelihood of repeat visits, positive online reviews, and word-of-mouth advertising.

Suggestions:

• Develop a clear mission statement and integrate those values into all onboarding processes, training initiatives, and patient interactions.
• Implement a patient relationship management model to improve patient participation with facility values.
• Vet candidates for cultural fit and technical expertise, and select personnel who are motivated about the facility’s mission.

2. Develop Your Urgent Care Business Plan

An effective business plan includes the strategies necessary for achieving the goals of your urgent care business model. This will be your roadmap for ensuring the legal, financial, and operational viability of your organization, and may include your urgent care startup checklist or specific items such as staffing requirements and necessary profit margins.

Suggestions:

• Plan ahead to stay on top of regulations, compliance issues, and facility licensing needs.
• Identify your source of funding and select a location so you can outline and strategize your specific urgent care startup costs and prepare for construction (or remodel) and other business requirements.
• Implement side hustles to ensure cash flow during business’s first days and slow seasons such as Department of Transportation (DOT) physicals, pre-employment screenings, and drug testing.

3. Economize Where Possible

Revenue may take time to generate. Controlling costs helps allow the necessary financial flexibility to sustainably grow your client base and establish your facility. Later, it gives you the added benefit of providing more autonomy with resource-allocation decisions.

Suggestions:

• Negotiate everything from facility rent prices to equipment and technology purchases.
• Implement transparent pricing and allow patients the opportunity to pay out-of-pocket to circumvent the lag between care provision and insurance reimbursement.
• Outfit the organization in a way that avoids paying for unnecessary equipment and personnel. Consider keeping rooms empty and closed until the patient population warrants furnishing those additional spaces.

4. Utilize Technology to Optimize Business Goals and Strategies

Technology in urgent care centers has the capacity to streamline check-ins, modernize charting, expedite diagnostic measures, and enhance marketing efforts. Whether it’s point-of-care testing (POCT) to rule out the flu or AI assistance with medical billing, technology is a necessary consideration in your urgent care business model.

Suggestions:

• Streamline operational compliance by automating regulatory and licensing requirement reminders, and improve accessibility with technological measures like digital check-ins and telehealth availability.
• Implement advanced technological measures to further improve efficiency and productivity, such as with AI-assisted note dictation and EHR software designed to accommodate specific facility needs.
• Use technology to assist with marketing strategies, incorporating social media and online outreach to improve digital visibility and customer outreach.

5. Tailor Your Urgent Care Staffing to Fit Personnel and Facility Needs

The urgent care profit margin is largely dependent on the volume of patients seen. Yet, it’s often seasonal work, with an influx of patients during cold and flu seasons. Well-developed urgent care staffing models can boost employee satisfaction (and retention) while adhering to the skeletal staffing structure necessary to maintain a facility’s bottom line.

Suggestions:

• Automate where appropriate (such as with virtual check-in services, billing assistance, and optimized electronic charting systems) to help reduce employee burden.
• Cross-train staff to avoid duplicate roles and inefficient workflow. For example, instead of hiring a phlebotomist and lab technician, staff nurses can perform blood draws and POCT.
• Advertise flexible hours and PRN scheduling on job boards as a benefit. Many candidates may see reduced summer hours during a clinic’s slow season as convenient while their children are out of school.

Curious About Other Business and Staffing Considerations?

These best practices for developing an urgent care business model provide a good starting place to help you build and maintain a competitive edge in the growing urgent care industry. We’ll continue to support you with additional healthcare tips and recommendations for keeping your business at the forefront of industry standards.