David Stern Offers Urgent Care Business Advice

Q: I live in the rural Midwest. A nearby town of 5,000 residents (10,000 in the county) has been asking me to open an urgent care center there. There is only one physician in the town, and he is quite busy. The people really could use an urgent care center, so I have decided to open an urgent care center in the town. What do you think?

A: This is a common issue. Rural towns want city services, but they do not have an adequate population to support these businesses. Just because they asked you to come does not mean that they will be able to provide adequate visits to ensure the viability of the business. Is the town willing to cosign on your loans or guarantee that you will receive a certain income? Not likely.

Is there a Starbucks in town? Why not? Because even though there are a few people who desperately desire a morning latte, there are too few to support a viable business. So how can you decide if the town is big enough to support an urgent care center? As a general rule, we like to see at least a catchment population of 30,000 before considering the town for an urgent care center.

Other ways to determine the viability of a business is to make sure that there is at least one Wal-Mart and one McDonalds in town. If there are neither, forget it. The catchment population that shop and eat in that town is not big enough to support an urgent care center.

So what is your option if you really want to open an urgent care center in the town? Simply open a primary care practice that accepts walk in patients. It is not likely that there will not be enough visits to justify evening or weekend hours, but you can start with four hours on Saturday mornings. If you find yourself quite busy during these hours, you can expand your Saturday hours to meet the demand. I wish you the best, as rural America really does need quality medical services, and I applaud your desire to meet the need.

David E. Stern, MD, CPC, is a partner in Physicians Immediate Care, operating 12 urgent care centers in Oklahoma and Illinois. Stern serves on the Board of the Urgent Care Association of America and speaks frequently at urgent care conferences. He is also CEO of Practice Velocity (www.practicevelocity.com), which provides urgent care software solutions to more than 500 urgent care centers. He welcomes your questions about the business of urgent care.

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