Starting an Urgent Care Center: Basics for Startup Clinics
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=David_Stern] David Stern Many of todays physicians have been caught in the world of big medicine, as employees of large hospital systems or multispecialty practices, or ER groups. A growing trend is for physicians to gain some independence by starting an urgent care center. The growth of the urgent care industry has been fueled by public demand for convenient access to ambulatory healthcare. Unlike emergency medicine practices, urgent care centers are generally not hospital-based, and urgent care centers specialize in treating illnesses and injuries that require timely treatment but are not true emergencies. The physician interested in starting an urgent care center would do well to follow a few basic suggestions: Start with the Ideal Urgent Care Community: Finding the ideal location may be difficult. But if you choose a community that is already well-served with urgent care access, your chance for success will be much lowerand your startup losses and burn rate will be much higher. Find a community that has 1) at least 40,000 people and 2) has no other urgent care centers. Find a Location for Your Startup Urgent Care: After you find a community that is in need of urgent care services, but it is also important to find a good location in that community for a startup urgent care center. A freestanding building on a busy thoroughfare is best, but a location in strip mall will also work. One common mistake is to settle for a suite in a medical office building that is not on a street with significant traffic. Unless, you have thirty or more physicians that are in joint-ownership, who will be referring their overflow and after-hours patients, this type of location generally causes severe cash flow deficits. Even if you do find a great location, make sure that you can obtain adequate signage on the street; and get it in writing from the landlord. Business Plan for the Startup Urgent Care: If you are thinking about starting an urgent care center, you should sit down and write a business plan. This exercise will force you to think through the many issues involved in starting an urgent care. Startup Urgent Care Conference: Attend an Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) urgent care startup conference. Each year, UCAOA puts on two full-day conferences, outlining how to start an urgent care center. Experienced urgent care operators share what it takes for success in starting an urgent care center. Choose Your Urgent Care Scope of Service. A few urgent care centers serve walk-in patients. Other urgent care centers choose to combine primary care medicine and walk-in services in the same facility. Most urgent care centers, however, incorporate occupational medicine services (treating workers compensation injuries and other corporate medicine services) in addition to walk-in patients. Local corporations are often delighted to have local clinic that will treat workers compensation cases, perform post-offer physical examinations, drug screening, and provide other corporate medicine servicesespecially when those services are available after-hours and on weekends. Find an Urgent Care Billing Company: Urgent care billing is unique. Hospital-run urgent care centers often use hospital billers with no expertise and no real interest in urgent care billing and coding. Physicians coming from an emergency medicine background often choose the biller that has been performing their high-acuity emergency practice billing but has no experience in urgent care billing, which in many ways is more similar (yet quite different from) urgent care billing Other startup urgent care choose to use an inexperienced spouse or receptionist to bill claims. Be careful! Inefficient billing and collections will strangle the financial lifeblood out of a startup urgent care center. You will want to find a biller that has specific knowledge in the intricacies of urgent care coding and billing. Select Charting & Billing Urgent Care Software: Find software that is specifically designed for efficiency in the urgent care center. The best urgent care software will not overcome a poor location, a poor community or a poor urgent care business plan. Excellent urgent care software can synergize with a good business plan to speed your startup urgent care center to success. Market Your Urgent Care: Various urgent care centers have found effective multiple different methods, including grand openings, newspaper advertisements, billboards, radio ads, websites, and newsletters. Be careful that you do not overspend on advertising, as many centers underestimate the amount of capital that will be needed to operate the urgent care center for the full year. Make sure that you list your urgent care center on the Practice Velocity Urgent Care Directory. Network with Startup Urgent Care Veterans: Spend time learning from others who have already found success in the field. They can save you years of headaches and struggle. Urgent care startup consultants such as Patrice Pash at National Med Network can help ensure your success in your startup urgent care. Enjoy the Ride: Starting an urgent care will be the hardest job you ever loved. David Stern, MD, CPC is popular writer and speaker about charting, billing, and business development in urgent care centers. He is partner in [http://www.physiciansimmediatecare.com] Physicians Immediate Care, operating nine walk-in clinics in Illinois and Oklahoma. Board certified in internal medicine. He has practiced urgent care medicine for seventeen years. He serves as Director of Communications for the [http://www.ucaoa.org] Urgent Care Association of America. He is CEO of [http://www.practicevelocity.com] Practice Velocity Urgent Care Solutions, with software solutions designed specifically for urgent care centers and installations in over 150 urgent care centers in the USA. 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