Private Primary Care Physicians BE-AWARE!!!

Question: How long do you think that it will take before Urgent Care Centers turn into direct competitors of private primary care physician practices? Answer: In a blink of an Insurer’s/HMO’s/Payer’s check book. The handwriting is definitely on the Wall. It is time for private primary care physicians to organize into their own financing entities.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/58A58D14E38BFD6F862573CB000B28D5?OpenDocument

Time-strapped patients feeding growth of urgent care centers
Mary Jo Feldstein
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/09/2008

New urgent care centers are popping up across the region, mirroring a national trend and reaffirming patients’ growing desire for convenience.

St. Anthony’s Medical Center will open its fourth urgent care center next summer at Interstate 44 and Big Bend Boulevard. St. Luke’s Hospital recently opened urgent care centers on Kirkwood Road in Kirkwood, at WingHaven in O’Fallon, Mo., and on Clarkson Road in Ellisville. Physician Irwin Pilsco and his wife opened an independent center in Des Peres last year.

The aim of urgent care centers is to quickly treat patients who need immediate care but don’t require the level of service provided at an emergency room. They’re staffed by physicians as well as other medical professionals. There’s no need for an appointment, and most urgent care centers are open on weekends and evenings.

Patients with broken bones and earaches are prime candidates. Urgent care centers don’t provide long-term management of chronic diseases, but they frequently have X-ray machines, laboratories and other features not found in most physicians’ offices.

With many primary care doctors booking appointments weeks in advance and wait times of several hours at emergency rooms, the demand for urgent care centers is growing, experts said. Many insurers are helping drive the expansion by offering patients lower co-pays if they choose an urgent care center over an emergency room.

Urgent care centers, many of which were started by physicians’ groups, first sprouted up in the early 1980s. Over the next 15 years, a decline occurred. Some of these centers went bankrupt, others were sold to hospitals and then closed.

A resurgence began in the mid-1990s. There are between 12,000 and 20,000 of these centers nationwide, according to a 2004 report by the California Healthcare Foundation. A 2005 report in Emergency Medicine Review estimated as many as two new urgent care facilities open each week.

Pilsco points out that several of the urgent care centers locally are within a couple of miles of each other.

“The question is how many more urgent care centers can open up before we start diluting ourselves?” Pilsco said.

St. Anthony’s new urgent care center in Crestwood, for example, isn’t far from St. Luke’s new urgent care center in Kirkwood. But Mike Anderson, who oversees urgent care for St. Anthony’s, said there will be additional need in the neighborhood after SSM St. Joseph in Kirkwood closes to make room for SSM’s new St. Claire Health Center in Fenton.

The rise of retail-based clinics such as those in many local Schnuck Markets Inc. and Walgreen Co. stores add more competition. While those clinics are not staffed by physicians and cannot treat the more serious cases seen by urgent care centers, there is some overlap.

Linda Hayden, who directs St. Luke’s urgent care centers, said there’s always some concern about overcrowding when growth occurs as quickly as it has. St. Luke’s is monitoring it “very closely.” But because St. Luke’s sees increasing numbers of patients at existing centers, Hayden said she thinks a need remains.

“It’s the perfect place to go when you can’t get into the primary care physician’s office,” Hayden said.