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from 8,000 since 2008 — though others say it's closer to 12,000 and growing at a
clip of 600 per year.
Many of these locations are either franchised or affiliated
with hospitals as catchall extensions of the ER, but an increasing number of
sur-
gical practices like ours have found value in adding orthopedic-specific urgent
care centers to the fold.
When Reno (Nev.) Orthopaedic Clinic
opened ROC Express in 2014, the ortho-
pedic urgent care center literally and
figuratively broke new ground. The
fledgling center had plenty of competi-
tion from the likes of hospital emer-
gency departments and other urgent
cares, but this was the first urgent care
in the region staffed by physician assis-
tants and supervised by surgeons devoted solely to orthopedic care.
In its first year — after the practice spent $1.6 million on construction, admin-
istration, marketing, imaging and 12 months of labor and staffing — the urgent
care brought in more than $2.5 million in revenue. At the same time, revenue
from the follow-up care of patients who entered the practice through the urgent
care exceeded $7.6 million over the same time period.
The findings of a 12-month study of the urgent care clinic may help to explain
the clinic's success (osmag.net/AMTr3n): The average charge for an urgent care
visit was $461, compared with $8,150 for a local trauma center's emergency
department; the average visit time was 43 minutes in the urgent care, versus 156
minutes in the ER; and the average time to be seen by an orthopedic specialist
was 1.2 days in the urgent care and 3.4 days for ER patients.
— Bill Donahue
PROFIT POTENTIAL
Ortho Clinics Ramp Up Revenues
• THUMBS UP ROC Express became a profitable venture within
a year of opening.
Reno
Orthopaedic
Clinic
