Urgent care centers have helped patients for longer than you might think. Research shows that walk in medical facilities began to exist during the year 2000. The first retail medical clinic in the United States opened in Twin Cities, Minnesota. By 2016, there were over 2,000 medical walk in facilities throughout the United States. Considering the popularity of these centers, you might think of starting your own medical walk in clinic. In this post, you’ll learn how to start an urgent care clinic.
3 Tips for Starting an Urgent Care Clinic
Before entering into this type of venture, it’s a good idea to learn a few important tips. In turn, these tips will be able to help ensure you’re wisely managing your urgent care center. With that in mind, here are three important tips for starting your own urgent care business.
Importance of Choosing the Right Location
Before starting your own urgent care clinic, you’ll need to choose the right location. Therefore, the first step in your urgent care start up checklist should involve finding a location that’s adequate. While researching various locations, it’s important to remember that convenience is key. Many of your potential future patients will find navigating multiple floors and long walkways exhausting. It’s best to ensure that your urgent care center is convenient for your patients. If possible, try to make sure that your urgent care clinic is its own separate space and away from crowded office towers.
Selecting the Right Kind of Building
Learning how to start an urgent care clinic means researching building space. Considering that, the next step for your urgent care start up checklist involves selecting the right building. This won’t be a concern for urgent care owners renting space in a large chain of commercial buildings. However, those building their own urgent care centers will have several important considerations to make. One of the most important considerations to make is how much retail space you’ll need. Fortunately, research shows that the average urgent care center sees about four to five patients an hour. This means that you might not need as much retail space as you might think.
Hiring Excellent Staff Members
Another important step in your urgent care start up checklist should involve hiring the right type of staff. After your urgent care center opens, it will take time and effort to grow. Considering that, you’ll want to keep operating costs as low as possible. This means trying to find staff members that are able to provide a wide variety of tasks.
In conclusion, it’s important to follow an urgent care start up checklist before entering into this industry. After performing the previously mentioned steps, you will be getting closer to opening up your own medical walk in care facility. Many patients visit these locations in order to save in regards to medical costs. In fact, research shows that the average treatment cost at a retail clinic is about 30 to 40% less than visiting a physician’s office. If you’re wanting to enter into a popular industry with plenty of opportunities, consider starting your own urgent care clinic.