What’s Behind The Growth Of Urgent Care Clinics?
The need for good healthcare services also comes with the hope of lower cost of such care by doctors in Arlington VA and the same precedent could be noticed in other places across the United States. Unlike walk-in retail clinics that treat minor low-acuity conditions like cough and cold, urgent care clinics have the capacity to treat more serious conditions barring those that are life-threatening. The growing demand for optimum care was answered by the urgent care clinics and their numbers increased exponentially between 2016 and 2019.
Millennials are driving the demand for urgent care
It is quite unfortunate that over 45% of millennials are deprived of the services of primary care physicians. When we look at the reasons for that, it is quite interesting to see that these youngsters exude a lot of confidence in the services available at urgent care centers. According to one millennial, “Whenever I need to be at a doctor office near me, I prefer going to an urgent care clinic because they are faster, cheaper and good at their job.” It is therefore, not difficult to understand why millennials are driving the demand for more urgent care clinics to open up across the country.
Aging Baby boomers are increasingly choosing urgent care
The other major driver of demand for the services of urgent care clinics is the baby boomers generation in Arlington and elsewhere, which is getting older and more dependent on Medicare and Medicaid. It’s not just the young and the restless who like faster services but older folks like the baby boomers as well, who prefer the convenience of less waiting time for doctors in Arlington VAurgent care. For older folks especially, the long appointment queues and several times more expensive care in doctor’s clinics are quite inconvenient. No wonder, over 27% of all visits to urgent care centers comprise of aging baby boomers.
Urgent care clinics are far more economical
When you consider the two main demographic groups driving up the demand for urgent care centers – millennials and aging baby boomers, it is easy to see that affordability is critical. Both groups are financially challenged and look for options where they can get good healthcare at affordable cost. Studies have found that the cost of treatment in the hospital emergency room (ER) is over 10 times more than what it costs in an urgent care clinic for patients with the same diagnosis. One senior in Arlington explained, “When I can get a good doctor office near me, offering the same treatment for so much less, where’s the need to go and get my pocket busted?”
When the Covid outbreak shook up the whole country, little Arlington could not have gotten away and saw its own share of infections and deaths. Urgent care clinics struggled as much as all others if not more, to save lives but a major difference is that they did it at a far lower cost. For the common person, this is a huge relief in a pandemic situation where people are paranoid and vulnerable. Such invaluable but affordable services provided by the urgent care clinics across the country have increased their credibility in the eyes of the common folks.
