Ensure that you and your staff are qualified to set up an urgent care clinic.
Urgent care clinics provide care to individuals who may not require the critical attention provided by an accident and emergency service, but who require urgent care to prevent symptoms or an injury from developing into something more serious. Any person whose condition may lead to long-term complications or death if not treated within 24 hours requires urgent care. Family doctors, hospitals, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and emergency services personnel can all administer urgent care. The Urgent Care Association of America states that urgent care services form a direct link between the public and emergency and hospital services in the community. Setting up an urgent care clinic is a challenging and costly task.
Instructions
Business Planning, Location and Marketing
1. Ensure that you are qualified to start an urgent care center in your state. Certain states require you to be a physician before you can open an urgent care center. These states include Illinois, Colorado, New York, California, Iowa, New Jersey, Texas and Ohio. If you plan to open in Arizona, you need a license.
2. Decide if you want to set up a private practice as a physician or if you want to attach your clinic to a hospital. The latter option usually helps minimize start-up costs. If you decide to take the route of attaching to a hospital, start by striking up relationships with hospital managers to assess your options.
3. Conduct market research in the area. Your market research should include details on any competition in the area and the results of surveys taken to assess the feasibility of your idea. Avoid areas which already have one or more urgent care clinics.
4. Write a detailed business plan. Your business plan should include potential locations for your clinic, plus a description of the community you will be serving. The community should ideally have a minimum population of 40,000 people with minimal or no access to urgent care facilities. If your clinic will be attached to a hospital, describe how the hospital will assist you with providing staff, equipment and financial backing. Include details of any extra capital you need to start up and provide specifics about how much income your clinic will make every year for the first five years. Include a detailed marketing plan showing how you will market your urgent care clinic to the local community.
5. Look at your financial situation to assess the need for financial backing. You may need to use your business plan to obtain a business start-up loan or approach venture capitalists.
6. Find a location in an easily accessible area. The building itself should be free standing. Consider purchasing an existing urgent care center. For example, your local hospital may own an urgent care center that does marginally well, but could do a lot better with the right care and attention.
7. Decide on the services your clinic will offer and set up with the right equipment and staff to provide these services. Aim to provide at a minimum help for minor injuries, sprains, burns, physicals and drug screenings. Most people requiring serious help will attend accident and emergency services so the services your clinic provides need not be as diverse as an accident and emergency department.
8. Execute your marketing plan. Offer a faster and less expensive service than the local hospital, and market the business in local newspapers, direct mailings and billboards.
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