How to Start an Urgent Care Center
(Top 25 Urgent Care Startup Mistakes)

"Make plenty of mistakes; just don't make the big one."
 Anonymous

In the past twenty years, we (the principle partners in Practice Velocity) have started 16 urgent care centers, and we have spent hundreds of hours in discussions with many physicians on how to start urgent care centers. We have personally made many mistakes in starting our own urgent care centers, and we have tried to learn from each mistake that we have made. Every time we have realized that we have made a mistake in developing our urgent care centers, we have sat down and tried to analyze why the mistake was made, what the mistake means to the future of our urgent care centers, and how we can make sure that we don't repeat the mistake. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something more about how to start an urgent care center. In addition, we have observed many startup urgent care centers make mistakes that they have paid for dearly in the following years. With this background, we share our observations of the mistakes that can harm the development of a startup urgent care center.

We started with a top-ten list, but after ten minutes of brainstorming we already had listed over twenty important mistakes (check back as we add more mistakes on a regular basis) that we have made or have seen other physicians make in starting urgent care centers. These thoughts on how to start an urgent care center are penned from the perspective of entrepreneurial physicians, but many of the principles apply to urgent care centers started by other business partnerships or hospital systems.

Please note: these are not "rules" for how to start an urgent care center, but merely general principles to follow in starting urgent care centers. These ideas about the business of starting, developing and establishing urgent care centers are based on our own personal experience and observations. We have seen many a successful startup urgent care center violate one or more of these rules. We suspect, however, that the more mistakes you make, the more likely you are to struggle and lose sleep over the upcoming decade.

Click on each topic to read more in more depth about starting an urgent care.

1. Nothing but the best when starting an urgent care center
2. Confusing a great urgent care physician with a great urgent care entrepreneur
3. Confusing your inner entrepreneur with an urgent care business person
4. Not looking outside your home community to start your urgent care center
5. Starting an urgent care clinic where there are already lots of successful
   urgent care clinics
6. Thinking hospitals or other physicians are keys to success in starting an
   urgent care clinic
7. Ignoring coding in starting an urgent care center
8. Not writing a business plan outlining how you will start the urgent care center
9. Blindly sticking to your urgent care business plan
10. Neglecting free press marketing for the startup urgent care center
11. Choosing an inexperienced spouse or receptionist for billing in a new urgent care
12. Using an ED or primary care billing company for your new-start urgent care center
13. Not investing in adequate practice management software for your startup
    urgent care center
14. Ignoring billing in starting an urgent care center
15. Ignoring occupational medicine in starting an urgent care center
16. Overstaffing the startup urgent care
17. Being cash-only & not credentialing your startup urgent care
18. Not securing adequate financial assets when starting an urgent care center
19. Not considering purchasing an existing urgent care center
20. Choosing a small declining community to open an urgent care center in
21. Opening an urgent care far away from any local industry
22. Thinking that compliance is not important in new urgent care centers
23. Referring basic urgent care procedures to specialists
24. Ignoring ancillary income sources
25. Starting a second urgent care too soon