The pandemic fueled a surge in the growth of urgent care centers, with revenue expected to reach $48 billion this year, according to a Nov. 17 report from The New York Times.
Data from the Urgent Care Association shows there was a 60% increase in patient visits to urgent care centers nationwide from 2019 to 2020, with industry revenue set to increase 21% this year from 2019. Their growth comes amid increasing wait times for physician appointments. In 2022, the overall average wait time to see a new physician in the U.S. was 26 days, up 8% since 2017. The nation also faces a shortage of up to 48,000 primary care physicians by 2034, according to projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Those working in the urgent care space say their growth comes as no surprise, pointing to their ability to fill a gap in patient and community needs, physicians told the Times.
"I was working yesterday and had a kid who split his chin open in the gym," said Dmitry Volfson, MD, chief medical officer for CityMD, largest provider of urgent care in New York and New Jersey. "He was out of the clinic in 25 minutes. He would have waited five hours in the ER, and his primary care doctor isn't trained in that. I think primary care is super important — preventive care is huge — and obviously hospitals are important. But there's that in-between gap, and urgent care fills that gap.
"Here, a provider will see something like 50 or 60 cases for a 12-hour shift. The vast majority will be mild cases. Then you have a small percentage of people who are quite sick — the heart attack or allergic reaction. Those patients wind up going to the hospital."