Urgent need for extra revenue? Some try urgent care

Practice Management. By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. April 28, 2003.

It's always been billed as a low-cost alternative to the emergency department, but these days, some doctors are viewing urgent care as the answer to eroding bottom lines.

Physician practices are finding plenty of reasons to consider urgent care as a way to enhance revenue, from creating more opportunities to land new patients to finding another way to make money on fixed overhead costs, health care consultants said.

"Primary care and specialty physicians are always looking for any revenue stream they can get their hands on," said Bill DeMarco, president and CEO of DeMarco & Associates, a consulting firm in Rockford, Ill. "A convenience center with extended hours may be the first step, and then maybe they can move up to an urgent care clinic."

The major differences between the two are the types of appointments offered and the patients seen. While an urgent care center operates as a walk-in clinic and sees new patients, an office with extended hours generally requires scheduled appointments and sees only current patients.

The latter can serve as a goodwill offering to established patients. The former, though, can be a gateway to an expanded practice, both clinically and financially, physicians said.

"The more you can get out of your work space with the same fixed costs, the better," said Matt Mesnik, MD, an emergency physician and urgent care medical director at Aspen Medical Group, a 175-physician, multispecialty group in Minnesota's Twin Cities region. "You're adding employee costs, but you still have to pay to heat the building, if you're there or not."