Urgent care programs and centers provide a wide array of conveniences for your patients. Today, people are looking for the best service in the fastest amount of time. Just like you, your patients have busy schedules.
When a patient can receive great care without the need to travel to several locations to be treated for the same problem, they will choose that option almost every time.
As a physician, you can give your patients this option by adding the ancillary services of an urgent care at the point of care. This is easy and relatively inexpensive to establish. But he benefits for you and the patient far outweigh any cons.
Aside from bringing in a great amount of additional income for your practice, urgent care services immediately provide your patients with the conveniences listed below.
Less of a Footprint
Because urgent care services do not require much more overhead and unnecessary expenses, you can provide services to your patients for less money than they would have to pay at an emergency room. Patients would even be able to pay cash for some services, meaning you would not have to deal with insurance companies with every patient.
However, insurance companies are easy to work with, especially when using an in-office dispensing program and software.
Easier Access to Help
Regular doctor office hours do not always fit the schedules of your patients. When they get hurt outside of your office hours, they are often forced to go to an emergency room, even when they do not have an emergency.
This can lead to poor treatment by emergency room staff who think they are wasting time. This could also mean patients will refuse treatment they may need, thinking their injury is not serious enough for an emergency room.
Your urgent care services can provide treatment outside of normal hours and can be staffed with nurses and nurse practitioners perfectly qualified to provide help.
Immediate Access to Medicine
Many urgent care providers are choosing to dispense medications in-office. They are doing so because of the positive benefits to you and your patients. Increased revenue for physicians is the top reason for in-office dispensing.
For patients, receiving medication at the point of care means they do not have to travel from your urgent care to the pharmacy, where they will have to spend an hour or more waiting on their prescription to be filled.
This may not seem like an extreme amount of time but when you are in pain, it can be excruciating.
Prepackaged Medication
When using in-office dispensing, prepackaged medication is the best way to offer patients the safest and most reliable medication to address their problems.
Prepackaged medication arrives in your office in packaging that creates the best environment for each medication. Options include blister packs in which each pill, capsule or tablet is individually packaged and labeled, telling the patient exactly when to take their medicine.
Prepackaged medication prevents medical errors such as missing doses, taking too many doses, getting medicines confused, or storing in the wrong temperature. And these are just the errors that occur by patients. Pharmacy errors are even greater.
Immediate Access to a Diagnosis
Urgent care centers are equipped with laboratory capabilities. This includes taking necessary blood work to imaging and x-ray machines.
Many times, a doctor needs information such as blood work and x-rays to be secure in making a diagnosis. When you have access to this technology, you can get this information much quicker. You do not have to send your patients to separate facilities to gather the information regarding their health.
You can get the evidence you need, even after regular business hours.
Unclog the Emergency Room
By hosting an urgent care center, you are helping emergency rooms in many ways. Emergency rooms are established to treat emergencies. The doctors and other staff are trained for emergencies. And anytime a non-emergency comes through the doors, their attention and space become distracted from real emergencies.
There is a real problem today with people heading straight for the emergency room when they feel they need treatment. Unfortunately, this means emergency room doctors are treating non-life-threatening symptoms like strep throat, a fractured bone or child fevers, to name a few.
These could be better treated at an urgent care center, allowing emergency staff to stay focused on the true emergencies.
Unclog Your Practice
When you offer urgent care services for patients, they will not be in a mad rush to get squeezed into your schedule. If an accident happens at 4pm and your office closes at 5pm, many patients who do not have access to urgent care, will call your office and beg to be seen.
This means more trouble and time for your staff and for you.
If they know they can go to your urgent care center, as a walk-in, and be seen that same day, they will not bother your office. They will simply make their way to your urgent care and wait to be seen without the fear of being rushed through an appointment.
After all, you can only see so many patients in one day. And you do not want your practice life to begin interfering with your personal life.
In conclusion, your patients and their care are your top priority. Providing them access to good care at times outside of regular business hours just makes sense. Life is so unpredictable. No one can plan when they will get hurt or sick.
You can provide quality care, with easy access, no appointments needed, convenient services for your entire community. This type of service can lead to more patients choosing your practice as their primary care provider.
This means you can then expand your services and make more money with the use of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. This can also mean less hours for you but while making more money.
Patients are looking for a one stop treatment provider. You now can fill this need.