Questions for Dr. Stern
About Your Urgent Care Center
49. To whom it may concern, I was wondering if there is any way that I am able to obtain records regarding the number of patients an average urgent care physician see per shift. Thank you.
We have not gathered these statistics in a formal survey. However, from my experience with urgent care physicians throughout the country, physician workloads can be very variable. Some urgent care center physicians see only 20 patients per in a 12-hour shift; others see 100 patients or more per shift. In general, an urgent care center can not break even, unless it sees at least 30-35 patients per day. In the centers I work with, we generally look to add a PA to a physicians shift when the average patient workload exceeds 60-70 patients per 12-hour shift.
