Ideal Location to Start an Urgent Care

I frequently mention to inquirers that most people make the mistake of starting their new urgent care in their own home town, rather than look for an ideal town to start an urgent care center. After mentioning this to hundreds of people who are getting into the urgent care business, someone finally asked me for a list of criteria for choosing a town that would virtually guarantee success when starting urgent care center.

So, I sat down and wrote out my own ideas for a perfect town, in which to locate an urgent care center.

• 40-50,000 people
• 2-3 McDonalds (They do great demographic research.)
• No existing urgent care center in town
• Routine ER waits of 3+ hours
• Good physician is available in the town to help you staff the new urgent care center.
• Good industrial base for occupational medicine
• Location for startup urgent care center is available on busy road (used frequently by most people in town) with good signage.
• But, as she mentioned, the most important is whether her spouse was willing to live there.

These towns still exist. Today, I met with a group, looking to start the first urgent care center in their town of 35,000 with 150,000 people that live in the surrounding area and five McDonalds in town. As long as they don't make any big errors, they should be looking to open a second center within the first two years.

If you want to hit a home run with your first urgent care center find the perfect location, do all your research, listen to any experienced urgent care professional who will talk to you, get ready to work hard and love it, and move to the "perfect" town.

Over the years in our seven sister urgent care centers, we've hit a few bunt singles and a few home runs. Call Practice Velocity if you want to schedule a tour of one our sister urgent care centers to see how we do it.