How to Jumpstart Lagging Urgent Care Visit Volume

What’s the average visit volume for mature urgent care clinics? Watch this DataBrief to find out.

According to data reported in the Urgent Care Quarterly, mature clinics average 32 visits per day. If you’ve been open for more than a year and are struggling to reach this benchmark, it’s time to make a few adjustments.

Established clinics have a pretty defined patient base, so it won’t be easy improve your visit volume, but it’s not impossible. Keep in mind that even one more patient per day can be significant, and further, adding that one additional patient per day can lead to good word-of-mouth and online reviews, multiplying your efforts.

Start with assessing your marketing.

Most startup urgent care clinics are willing to allocate a substantial budget to marketing, but as business picks up, they often cut back. Reducing your marketing budget is common when business starts to fall off, but it’s a big mistake. Marketing is essential to staying relevant in a dynamic and competitive market. And while it takes time and effort, it doesn’t always require a big investment.

Grassroots marketing is one of the first and least expensive ways to connect with your community and keep your name in front of prospective patients. And it’s surprisingly effective. It’s also often the first place that many established urgent care centers tend to neglect as their marketing budget and tactics change over time.

Consider investing in social events like health fairs, 5K runs, or sponsoring kids’ sports teams. Your local community offers opportunities to speak to groups and position yourself as a leader. It also shows you care. BE a part of the community—and a good corporate citizen.

Next take a look at your social media presence.

• Do you even have a blog?
• Do you have a designated person responsible for keeping your blog relevant and timely?
• Is anyone looking at your Google business listing to make sure its fresh?
• Are you building relationships with patients online and interacting with your patient base about health and other topics important to them?
• Are you monitoring customer reviews (and responding appropriately)?
• Do you answer questions quickly?

If the answer is yes, your social media presence isn’t your problem. Keep up the good work.

If the answer is no, get busy building your network. Social media can be time consuming, but it’s often the way consumers communicate with service providers from every industry—and if you’re honest, it’s what you expect from the businesses you patronize.

Your website is a primary destination for prospective patients, and key to good marketing.

• When was the last time you updated your site?
• Does it look fresh and modern?
• Can people make a reservation online?
• Do you have a spot for customer reviews so people can read about great experiences of other patients?

If your patient volume is stagnant, it might be time to reassess your site and make some updates. Online reservations are super convenient for patients, which makes this a great fit urgent care. You do have options, and in most cases, the investment can have a big payoff. Many patient engagement software solutions, like Experity Patient Engagement, include patient surveys which can help you take the pulse of patients regarding their satisfaction. And they give you the opportunity to reach out to unhappy patients to make things right.

Consider offering new services.

If after a thorough marketing assessment your confident that you’re reaching your patients, consider adding a new service to your practice, or getting the word out about something you’re doing that you patients don’t know you offer.

Think about what healthcare services are missing in your area and use community events to ask people what they would like to see, for instance sports concussion baselines, sports physicals, telemedicine, physical therapy, or weight management. What’s important is that you provide something that’s needed, and that it helps you grow your business.

Find new patients.

Businesses are always looking for new customers and urgent care is no different. If your community is growing, determine where and go after new residents with a marketing outreach. You might have an open house and invite residents to come and see what you have to offer.

And for the newest patients in the community, create a campaign aimed at daycare facilities and families with babies and toddlers. Provide information about the stages of childhood or immunization schedules. Talk about and blog about what’s important to them.

Remember—today’s patients want relationships and control over their healthcare. What can you do to give them what they’re looking for?