Often the first touchpoint for patients at urgent care clinics is the front desk staff. Front desk staff help ensure smooth clinic operations and a positive patient experience. However, given the current state of the industry—with staffing shortages, and high turnover—finding and retaining the right staff has become a challenging task. Here is a quick guide to hiring and interviewing front desk...
Urgent care facilities have seen a rapid rise in demand over the past few years. According to the Urgent Care Association, patient volumes across the United States have grown by 60 percent since 2019. A record 11,150 urgent care facilities are currently operating across the country as of March 2023. To keep up with surging demand, the number of facilities operating across the country is...
About 15 years ago, a health systems strategy for financial success typically involved optimizing fee-for-service structures. This meant it was key to have good contract negotiation on high fees for service rates, but no risk sharing was involved. But things have changed. Health systems no longer make substantial contribution margins in this way. Most systems have shifted to encompass a...
Having access to care has always mattered, but the speed to which you can access care has changed. 26% of patients say that if their chosen provider isn’t available on the same day, they will go elsewhere, and 50% of parents said they will go somewhere else if same-day availability isn’t available. While you may not know exactly when patients want care, you can make it easier for patients to...
You've likely heard the question: Is this ER-worthy, or should I just head to urgent care? In many cases, patients must make a judgment call they are ill-equipped to make and often end up in the ER anyway. But when health systems partner with urgent care, they provide the opportunity to capture patients from the beginning of their health life cycle and retain them for significant lifetime value...
You’ve streamlined everything in your urgent care business–optimized your marketing, integrated your EMR, and adopted telemedicine to ease staff burdens. But one thing can still bring your profits to a screaming halt–claim rejections. Those claim rejections typically stem from small mistakes that have a significant impact–transposing two numbers in an address can lead to bills being sent to...
Financial health and profitability are perpetually top of mind for urgent care executives, particularly for new clinics ramping up to the breakeven point. Multi-site operators are often focused on regional expansion—but what’s the next step for growing your business? If you’ve overexpanded, how can you pull back and drive up profitability? You must understand which business levers you can pull...
Imagine this–a child falls on the playground and seems to have fractured an ankle. Where would the parent or caregiver likely take them for care? Many would immediately turn to the emergency room, illustrating a missed opportunity for urgent care centers. Instead of being the first choice for more complex care, urgent care centers that refer out patients with high acuity needs risk losing...
In 2018, Mercer predicted that demand for healthcare workers will outpace supply by 2025 (source). Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit. COVID-19 amplified staffing issues at medical offices. Nearly 1 in 5 healthcare workers have quit their jobs since February 2020, and an additional 31% of healthcare workers (who have kept their job during the pandemic) have considered quitting. We know that mental...
You understand that your front desk staff isn’t just answering phones and letting the doctor know when patients have arrived—there are complexities and challenges in their work, and those have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we head into flu season—your busiest season of the year—how can your clinical workflow be tweaked to make your front desk staff’s lives a bit...
