Urgent Care Marketing Strategy for 2023 – Part 3:  Complementary Specialties and Ancillary Services

In the first two parts of this series, we examined general trends facing the urgent care industry and how you can leverage community marketing for both urgent care and occ med services to build your patient base. In this second-to-last (for now, anyway) article in the series, we will look at other specialties that may be a good fit to complement your urgent care practice. If you have under-used office space or human resources, consider the options below.

Some of these options are straightforward, involving one type of exam or service, and can be fairly easily integrated into your existing practice. These services are often paid out-of-pocket, although in some cases you may be able to add services that are covered under urgent care insurance contracts. In other cases, you may need to establish a separate business and establish different insurance credentials. Alternatively, you might partner with or simply rent space to a complimentary practice.

Complementary Medical Specialties

In this section, we’ll look at medical specialties that are most often coupled with urgent care clinics.

• Occupational Medicine is probably the most common specialty to be added into an urgent care clinic. A significant portion of occ med involves employer-paid services – so you don’t have to deal with an insurance company. To be successful, you will need to provide timely and appropriate communication to both employers and the employees who use your services. The aspect of occ med that does involve insurance is workers’ compensation, but these should not interfere with urgent care credentialing. Due to the fact that multiple visits are generally required and that these can usually be scheduled during slower times at your clinic, they can be very profitable while also helping to balance your visit volume.In occ med, the exact opportunities will depend on the laws in your state as well as the mix of workplaces in your area. Your providers will need some extra training and will sometimes need to follow unique protocols for different employers. This obviously adds some work, but in most cases this can be kept to a very manageable amount by putting solid and reliable systems in place. Finally, you will have some additional administrative and billing needs, but again, these are fairly straightforward as long as you put good systems in place.
• Primary Care is another great fit for many urgent care clinics, as long as you either have a great partner ready to build a practice or the resources to deal with an often complicated credentialing process. Assuming you are building great relationships with urgent care patients, you can leverage this to acquire patients who either don’t have a primary care physician or who are not happy with the availability or other aspects of their current provider. From there, you can provide an improved continuum of care as patients utilize a combination of your services.
• Physical Therapy is also commonly affiliated with urgent care, as well as occupational medicine, since both of these specialties have the potential to refer patients to PT. So, when PT is offered at an urgent care, they also typically offer occ med. These services can be developed in-house but usually are offered via a partner. They can be co-located with the urgent care clinic, in which case they may only be offered on a limited schedule; often, they are located adjacent to or nearby the urgent care.
• Mental and Behavioral Health is another specialty that sees referrals from urgent care, as well as from occ med or primary care practices. Also, some therapists or counselors who do not have the ability to prescribe medication may need to partner with local physicians when medication may be warranted. This is a newer area of overlap, but if you can partner with providers who have schedules to fill, you can leverage referral opportunities to build this complimentary service.
• Aesthetic Medicine Clinics (Medspas) are being incorporated into more and more urgent cares. For some basic services in this specialty, a minimal amount of both equipment and additional training is needed, and usually these services are only offered by one or two of your providers. At this level, the aesthetic services are generally offered under the urgent care brand.If you progress to offering more advanced (but still generally minimally-invasive) services, you may want to consider spinning off the Medspa into a separate brand. These advanced services generally require much more expensive equipment and more extensive training, but if you have a provider who wants to focus on this area and the market conditions are right, this can be another smooth fit. These services are virtually all out-of-pocket and can be high-priced, which can be a nice complementary revenue stream as compared to urgent care.
• Orthopedic Practices are beginning to open up their own urgent care options for people who need walk-in care for an orthopedic condition. One way to combat this trend is to rent extra space in your clinic (if available) to an orthopedic surgeon. Alternatively, you can build a referral relationship with area orthopedic practices.

Other Complementary Services

The services below are usually out-of-pocket expenses, at least in an urgent care setting, although there are exceptions. Some of these might fall under one of the specialties above other than urgent care, but they are included here because they can be offered as a standalone service.

• IV Hydration will on occasion be medically required but can also be offered as an elective service that requires little additional investment, as long as you have the space. In most markets, it isn’t likely to be very popular, but it can be a nice incremental revenue stream that is primarily offered during slower summer months.
• Weight Loss treatment has evolved in recent years. Some of the newer drugs and other programs on the market can be offered in an urgent care setting. There are also options for weight loss that fall under aesthetic medicine.
• Immigration Physicals are fairly profitable exams that are paid out-of-pocket at the time of the exam. They need to be performed by a civil surgeon who has been approved by the US Citizenship and Immigration Department, which is a fairly straightforward process. In areas with large numbers of immigrants, these can be another great fit.
• Medication Dispensing can be a good way to earn additional income from your existing patients. After a setup process, you can provide pre-packaged medications, usually with modest co-pays. Details will vary depending on the state you are in and the dispensing partner you work with.
• Durable Medical Equipment (DME) is another product you can dispense from your urgent care. Similar to dispensing of medication, details will vary based on your state and your partners, as insurance can be especially tricky for DME. That said, when it is a fit, you’ll be earning more revenue from existing patient volume.
• Allergy Testing and Treatment is also a good option to consider. As the number of people who suffer from either environmental or food allergies has increased in our society, many urgent care clinics have added this service. Insurance tends to be tricky in this area, so it is often self-pay, but depending on other options available in your area, there may be opportunities worth pursuing.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has given you some inspiration about how you can add services to complement your urgent care offerings. Which leads to a question: how do you decide on the right mix of services? So far in this series of articles, we have looked at some more complex marketing tactics and how they can boost your business. In Part 4, we will put the first three articles into the context as we discuss the development of a strategic marketing plan. Stay tuned!