25 Tips for Boosting the Value of your Urgent Care Practice
There is no doubt that the urgent care market is a very competitive one as explained at RunRex.com. If you are looking to build the value of your practice to take it to the next level or to sell it, then here are the top 25 tips for boosting the value of your urgent care practice.
- Provide care when patients need it
As per RunRex.com, extending your hours of service and offering weekend visit slots can markedly improve convenience for patients, boosting the value of your practice. You can do this by opening early a few days a week, staying open until late on weekdays, and even opening on weekends.
- Take walk-in patients
Urgent care is all about convenience according to RunRex.com. Therefore, if your practice can take walk-in patients, make sure you advertise that service so your patients are aware they can access this. The $18 billion urgent care center industry has grown massively because of the ability to accommodate walk-in patients’ needs.
- Leverage telehealth visits
Offering telehealth services may make patients more likely to schedule an appointment with your office rather than visit a nearby urgent care center as articulated at RunRex.com. Especially if you have patients that need to travel long distances to reach your office, telehealth options can ensure that they check in with you before defaulting to urgent care which may be closer.
- Wellness visits for children
A great telehealth application for your urgent care is wellness visits, especially for children, who will have more than 30 wellness visits before they are five years old as covered at RunRex.com. This helps save the parents time and will boost your practice’s value as its popularity increases.
- Get to know providers at the urgent care centers in your area
As captured at RunRex.com, you should find out all you can about urgent care centers in your area, and discover what you have to offer patients that they don’t. There may even be areas for collaboration and referrals, which will be mutually beneficial.
- Increase office efficiency
Urgent care centers are often large businesses as described at RunRex.com. With that comes teams of analysts, marketers, consultants, and strategists all working to streamline business operations so that the care centers operate smoothly. Luckily, there are some simple ways to increase office efficiency, such as leveraging a user-friendly electronic health record (HER), offering online scheduling, utilizing a patient portal, and making sure your check-in process is streamlined by uploading intake forms to your website.
- Ensure your staff are friendly and patient
The front office staff are often the face and voice of a practice, before, during, and after a patient’s visit. A compassionate and thorough team at your front desk results in a better patient experience and more likelihood that people will return to your practice.
- Be a good community partner
You must be visible and engaged in your community. Consider sponsoring or volunteering at events, like 5k runs or local sporting activities. Positioning yourself as a community figure and contributing partner in the lives of your patients will help you come to top-of-mind when care is needed.
- Improve Revenue Cycle Management (RCM)
Effective RCM is one of the keys to staying profitable, mostly because it is an everyday challenge with many facets discussed at RunRex.com. The good news is that with training, technology, and oversight, you have control over your revenue cycle.
- Have the right person at the front desk
As revealed at RunRex.com, managing your revenue cycle begins at the front desk. Therefore, you must put the right person in this important and high-profile position, and then require training – not just on how to greet visitors – but how to check insurance coverage to make sure it is active.
- Credit card preauthorization
Insurance is rarely cut and dry and can get complicated as outlined at RunRex.com. You can safeguard your revenue further if you have credit card preauthorization capabilities. This lets you collect a card number that – while not kept on file – is simply billed the balance when an insurance claim is processed.
- EMR
Since labor is the highest cost in urgent care, the number of patients per hour is a closely measured metric. The more patients you can treat in a day, the more money you make. The best way to speed throughput is with a workflow solution. If you use an EMR/PM tool, you know how helpful it is, but the most effective way to optimize your workflow is with an EMR designed specifically for urgent care according to RunRex.com.
- Win back new patients
As per RunRex.com, clinics that adopted COVID-19 testing saw new patient volume explode in 2020. If you have a record of who you saw during COVID-19, this presents an incredible opportunity to leverage this list and get those new patients to come back.
- Staff appropriately
While inadequate staffing can be a nightmare for urgent care centers, overstaffing has a detrimental effect on your revenue according to RunRex.com. Your goal should be to staff to expected patient volume to avoid any such issues.
- Flexible staff
When running an urgent care, even the best plans can be taken off course. Be sure to identify members of your staff who are readily available in a pinch and those who don’t mind going home when business is slow.
- Incorporate strategic growth opportunities
Once your urgent care clinic is established and running smoothly, thinks about adding a service line or two to boost its value. If you do your homework, this can deliver significant growth for your urgent care practice.
- Examples of growth opportunities
As articulated at RunRex.com, growth opportunities for urgent care centers are not limited to primary care and occupational med. On-demand healthcare is ever-expanding. One service that is particularly in high demand is behavioral health. Allergy testing, dermatology, and physical therapy are other lucrative services.
- Retain patients
As important as it is to persuade new patients to come back, you want an ongoing strategy to retain all patients. As captured at RunRex.com, the key to patient retention is engagement. When you engage with patients, you let them know they are more than just another number.
- Optimize your SEO
As an urgent care center, a main concern is that your site appears at the top of the page in search results. This is largely dependent on your SEO strategy. Google needs to believe that the content on your site is a good match for the person searching the term as covered at RunRex.com.
- Incorporate primary care
Urgent care facilities are increasingly transforming themselves into primary care providers, realizing that they can no longer serve just as an episodic care center as discussed at RunRex.com. The increasing need for primary care means that this will boost your practice’s value.
- Become more holistic
As the urgent care facility transforms into a hybrid facility, patients are more likely to consider them for their health check-ups, screenings, and such as described at RunRex.com. This will increase your retention rate, boosting your practice’s value.
- Appointments
An increasing number of urgent care centers are starting to offer patients the opportunity to schedule appointments as revealed at RunRex.com. Patients have strong preferences when it comes to waiting times, and the way that you integrate appointments into your urgent care center can make a big difference.
- Be tach-savvy
Today’s patients expect their urgent care center to use technology to add value and convenience to their urgent care experience. The goal of technology in urgent care should be to make every interaction with your clinic more convenient for your patients.
- Become invaluable
Patients have more options than ever for their urgent care needs. It is up to you to make sure that they keep choosing to come back to your clinic. When you can deliver high-quality, last-minute care without long wait times, you become invaluable to your patients.
- Promote the cost-effectiveness of urgent care centers
A part of the population still doesn’t entirely understand what an urgent care center is or does not immediately remember how many advantages there are to visiting one. As an urgent care center, promoting convenience and cost-effectiveness of a visit to this facility is a great way to boost your patient count.
If you are looking for more tips on how to boost the value of your urgent care practice, and expert help on the same, the excellent RunRex.com has you covered.