Five Advantages to Moving to an Urgent Care Medical Model

Many medical providers go into the industry for convenience. As a physician, you usually have the opportunity to make your own work hours, especially if you go into private practice. While a private practice can be difficult to build, an emerging medical model makes it easier to branch into private practice. Urgent care centers are a trending new form of medical multicare. This new medical model makes it easier for physicians to branch into their own medical business.

Easier access to patients
Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of building a new practice is attracting enough patients. Patients do not easily leave their primary physician. It can take many years for a new physician to build their case load, even when in a traditional medical office. Branching into a private practice, however, can be extremely difficult without a loyal patient following. The good thing about this multicare medical model is that the majority of patients are walk ins. Patients are not making appointments, giving physician?s an easier access to new patients. An estimated 3 million patient?s visit urgent care centers each week, according to the Urgent Care Association of America, with plenty of opportunities for new physicians.

Ability to create your own schedule
Traditional physicians? offices are open normal business hours, usually a variation of eight to four or nine to five. This does not give physicians much wiggle room for alternative work schedules. Multicare medical models, however, are open much longer. About 85% of urgent care centers are open seven days a week. Many of them also have extended business hours, often until at least eight or nine at night. Physicians have many more hours to work with, creating the ideal work schedule.

Fewer administrative tasks
A successful physician office usually must have a pretty large office staff. Office staff is needed for billing, customer service, and scheduling. While billing and checking patients in and out is still needed, scheduling is not. This is an entire third of the office staff that can be cut. Physicians operating in a Lacey urgent care center model can reduce their administrative staffing needs. Some physicians even choose to eliminate the office staff entirely, using outside billing services. This reduction in staff can also allow the office to remain open for longer, thus reaching the needs of more patients.

Less diagnostic care
Diagnostics can take a lot of time and resources. A physician that works with numerous patients on finding a diagnosis can eventually lose out on a lot of money. The multicare urgent medical model is not set up to treat long term and chronic medical conditions. They are more focused on treating symptoms and finding immediate diagnoses. Physicians working in a local Covington urgent care center, for example, can easily refer patients to specialists. Even medical follow ups are often referred to the patient?s primary physician. This is the perfect medical model for physicians who are more focused on the immediate and relieving symptoms.

The ability to staff lower level medical providers
Urgent care centers employ more than physicians. They may also provide medical services from nurses, practitioners, or medical residents. This also gives the physician more convenience. They can employ lower level medical providers, saving money and increasing the ability to see even more patients. There are currently 20,000 physicians who practice Urgent Care Medicine today. Some of these physicians also remain seeing patients in a traditional office setting, while also picking up additional clients at local urgent care centers.

A lot of physicians today are going into the urgent care medical model. A physician that chooses this field of the medical model will benefit from many advantages, including a more convenient flexible work schedule, the ability to cut costs with administrative and lower level providers, and a shift away from the reliance of repeat patients.