The future of urgent care: a customer’s top 3 tips

How a medical practice made bold choices to navigate urgent care challenges

Recently, athenahealth sat down with Dr. Tony Euser, owner and physician at Platte River Medical Clinic in Colorado¹, for a candid conversation about the current shift in the urgent care industry that has led many operators to consider expanding their service offerings – and reevaluate whether their technology can keep up.

During the webinar, “Future-Proofing Urgent Care: Diversification Strategies for Long-Term Success,” Dr. Euser discussed how he originally came to add urgent care services to his primary care practice, and why he decided to return to the athenaOne® solution after briefly switching to a competitor’s urgent care specialty software.

Read on for a selection of Dr. Euser’s valuable business insights, then watch the webinar on demand for the full story.

Insight #1: Healthcare is changing, and the opportunity is ripe for nimble urgent care centers  

Operating on an episodic care model, urgent care clinics thrive on their speed, agility, and capacity to respond to a range of acute healthcare concerns. But the winds are shifting, and industry trends such as lower visit volume per location, increased competition for patient loyalty, and declining reimbursement rates have led many urgent care operators to consider pivoting to a hybrid care model. During the webinar, we surveyed the audience with an in-webinar poll, and about 70% of poll respondents cited either declining reimbursements & increasing costs or lower visit volumes as their most significant headwind, underlining the business challenges of operating an urgent care center today.

To stay competitive, some operators are shifting to multi-service line models that combine urgent and primary care. Dr. Euser shared how his team responded to after-hours care gaps by expanding services — an approach that’s grown into 11 clinics and nearly 50 providers. Their model allows for seamless referrals between urgent and primary care, helping sustain visit volumes and build patient loyalty.

As Dr. Euser said his team has observed, “Between 30% and 40% of the people coming into the urgent cares don’t have a primary care [provider],” making the case for integrated care even more compelling.

We succumbed to the siren song of an urgent care software package. Lo and behold, we didn’t know what good things we had with athenahealth.

- Tony Euser, D.O., Platte River Medical Clinic

Insight #2: That “flashy” specialty solution may cost you more than you expect

As your practice evolves, you can’t assume that urgent care software will automatically be the best Healthcare IT choice. Dr. Euser learned this the hard way, making what he called “probably the most costly mistake in my business career.” Although he had been an athenaOne® customer since 2009, in 2018 he decided to switch to a solution designed solely for urgent care. In his words, “We succumbed to the siren song of an urgent care software package. Lo and behold, we didn’t know what good things we had with athenahealth” – advantages such as athenaOne’s processing speed, claims support, and scrubbing claims before submitting them, factors which contribute to athenaOne’s urgent care clean claim submission rate of 98.2%.²  

It was an expensive decision. Dr. Euser said that after switching to the urgent-care-exclusive software, the clinic’s per-visit plummeted nearly 30%. “That cost me in the neighborhood of $3 to $4 million in lost revenue in the 18 months I was with them,” he said.

Insight #3: A robust all-in-one Healthcare IT solution makes all the difference

Adding new service lines means planning for new situations, many of which aren’t typical for an urgent-care-only site. An urgent care EMR may not be up to the task. Dr. Euser said, “There are things going on in primary care that you don’t deal with in urgent care. You’re going to need a robust EMR to help you through.” For an urgent care clinic adding primary care services, new and necessary clinical processes range from prescription refills and referrals to follow-ups from other providers, hospitals, and clinics. Urgent care operators should also be prepared to handle business processes for primary care, from regulations and staffing and payer contracts, that may differ from what they’re used to seeing.

Platte River Medical Clinic returned to athenaOne in 2019 for its ability to deliver the capabilities and support the expanding practice needed. Looking back, Dr. Euser likened the urgent care software to “a shiny red car: it’s neat, but bottom line, we need a Mack truck to provide the power for our practices. It’s flashy and looks good, but you need horsepower. And I think that’s the one thing that I’ve come away with from athena, is that they have the horsepower to help us get through these things.”

Watch the full webinar on demand

Are you prepared for urgent care challenges like industry change and evolving patient expectations? Watch the webinar on demand to learn about trends our team has identified, along with Dr. Euser’s experiences and some steps you can take to keep your urgent care clinic competitive and thriving.