Volunteer Service Improves Morale; and Markets Your Center Effectively

Ways to Give Back

Many other urgent care staffs find great ways to get involved and improve their facility’s community relations. At MedExpress clinics in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Colorado, volunteer work is seen as a great way to get acquainted with potential clients.

Staff members in Colorado, for instance, have sponsored (through time and/or money) scholarships, a high school lacrosse team, a baseball team, high school after-prom parties, a high school cheerleading squad, parks and recreation programs, a Thanksgiving 5K, chambers of commerce, a safe house, immunization efforts, a breast cancer foundation, an arthritis association, a leukemia and lymphoma society, a women’s outreach center, the American Heart Association, and several other causes.

At Physician’s Immediate Care in Elgin, Ill., the staff recently partnered with neighboring businesses to host a festival full of family activities.

Some urgent care companies have entire committees in charge of volunteer activities. Solantic, which owns 16 urgent care centers in Florida, has a “corporate contributions committee” that reviews volunteer requests, says Karen Bowling, Solantic CEO.

Solantic staff members have been involved with a charity tennis tournament, a children’s after school program, sheriff’s programs, Rotary programs, fundraisers for diabetes and heart health, the Humane Society, and they bought a refrigerator for a local church.

“Giving back is an important part of the Solantic culture and business philosophy,” Bowling said. “I think most people go into medical care because they truly care about people — patients and their communities. It’s a great way to extend our mission outside our four walls, and to connect with people who may use our services or can share information that might help us improve our services. One of Solantic’s five key values is ‘nice’ — we want to hire people that are nice and part of being nice is making our communities a better place to live.”

In February, Solantic treated flu patients for free at one of their facilities, if those patients had received a flu shot there and contracted the flu anyway. The reason Solantic officials offered this program is because they regretted that this year’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine was so ineffective.

Solantic staff members waived the cost of positive flu tests and examinations of those patients. Fees for negative flu tests were not waived.

That type of service draws people into the clinic, which is a great way to get new patients. At Valley Ranch Urgent Care (in Dallas), which opened in June, the staff attracted patients by offering free screenings for cholesterol, blood glucose, bone density, and body mass index.

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