Any folks into this business? urgent care centers seem to be popping up everywhere. I would assume that a smartly run urgent care center could set a doc for life. Any feedback on this topic?
Urgent Care Centers
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Set for life? No way. I'm assuming urgent care centers pop up because they can staff them with 1 RN, 1 NP, and a few medical assistants and churn through as many patients as possible a day and earn a small profit for the owner. NP needs to be supervised by some sort of doc, so you have a few different urgent care centers in the same area with 1 physician that reviews the charts.
So if you are the business owner that has say 4 Urgent Care centers, your personnel costs are...
1 MD ... 200K
5 NP (to cover for someone being on vacation)...600K
5 RN ... 250K
office staff plus medical assistants.... 500K
That's like 1.5 M including benefits for the people to work there plus add in rent and what not and you are pushing close to $2M a year in costs. If you see 100 patients per week at each one, that's 2500 patient encounters per year. Can you collect $100 per patient on average? If so, that's $125K per year per location profit to the owner, though that's a pretty small profit margin. Squeeze a few more patients per location per day and you can make more, but I'm assuming those places have serious burnout amongst employees and their staffing costs end up being more because of it.
My concern is that if you're now becoming interested because they have become so commonplace and its top of mind advertising at this stage, you've missed the lucrative part of the cycle. Though there is probably quite a bit of growth and profit left of course. Yes, it could probably set you up for life in a good location, with good mix of patients and assuming competition or legislation doesnt drastically change the business model.
A quick google search with likely out of date numbers showed it was around 750k-1M to start up, average place generated 2.3M in revenue, and pts pay average of 100-120/visit. Confirmed it is low margin. If you made it out a few years it would likely become much better as those sunk costs get depreciated and continue to provide revenue. My other issue beside personal liability (I'd want to be an owner, not medically linked), is regulatory clamp down that could ruin you.
A quick google search with likely out of date numbers showed it was around 750k-1M to start up, average place generated 2.3M in revenue, and pts pay average of 100-120/visit. Confirmed it is low margin. If you made it out a few years it would likely become much better as those sunk costs get depreciated and continue to provide revenue. My other issue beside personal liability (I'd want to be an owner, not medically linked), is regulatory clamp down that could ruin you.
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You went too aggressive with the numbers.
Assuming he is the MD supervising the NP, with 1 MA and maybe 2-3 support staff, he owns the building in a good location, starting with 1 center, it can be very profitable. I know a guy that did this, and is still employed, about to quit because he is doing so well.
All of those conditions need to be met, and that is the tricky part, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
OK, but assuming you "own the building" is untrue for the vast majority of docs. There aren't many sitting around with unused medical offices on their hands. I mean of course if you own the building and are the doc you will take home more pay. But when talking about being "set for life" like the OP, I kinda took that to mean a business that will end up running itself without you being there 60 hours a week doing all the work.
Thanks for the replies. An urgent care center is appealing bc of the autonomy and to be your own boss. Although, I've looked around and I thought I'd ask here. Ive looked at urgent care association of America any one know other good sources? Would you guys agree that med-peds is way better suited for an urgent care center then straight MI?
I guess in the long run this could happen but obviously you have have to put in work to get things running. By set I mean at least earning a doc salary of the bat and working off that as you establish yourself. I don't intent on retiring early... will at least do some part time work to have cash flow coming in.
Not really, your definition is no different than being a doc in any situation, thats what everyone does.
It all depends on how much capital you have access to or are comfortable with. You could easily set the whole thing up and hire a doc in your place, this is exactly what all the hospitals/organizations branching into it are doing. That scenario better fits the type of description the OP was implying, even if unintended. I wouldnt be opposed to owning an urgent care center or having an equity stake, but no way would I ever work in one, thats not the place in the business structure I'd want.
I can probably add to this discussion since I opened up an urgent care about 5 years ago. Let me address a few comments above and then tell you what my experience has been.
So having said that, I will say that owning an UC can be very lucrative but as said above it's not easy or everyone would do it. I opened an UC 5 years ago along with 4 other physician partners. I was the lead on the project and conservatively spent about 1500 hrs in the year leading up to opening doing research, writing business plans, meeting with banks, etc. That's a lot of time with a significant opportunity cost in terms of other things you could be doing. From a capital stand point you can plan on spending $1M-$2M to buy and build with an additional $200k-$500k for equipment and working capital depending on how quickly you hit profitability. We opened the doors with the 5 of us initially staffing it to get everything running the way we wanted and develop all of our systems. We all continued working full time in our ED so we didn't pay ourselves anything until we had become cash flow positive and had paid off all of our working capital loan. We became cash flow positive after 4 months and had paid off our working capital loan by month 7 or 8 if I remember correctly. We gradually transitioned ourselves out of clinical roles by hiring employee physicians. At this point we now have 3 employee physicians and each of us works 1 clinical shift every other month (no weekends or holidays). After paying out all expenses, the 5 of us split about $500k-750k/yr in what is essentially passive income at this point coming off of a single urgent care center. That's not too shabby, and if you were only splitting that 1 or 2 ways it would give you a very comfortable passive income.
I'm happy to answer any other questions.
100 pts/wk would be an utter failure of an UC at only 14 patients/day. Most UCs have a break even point of about 20-25 pts/day unless you are really running on a shoestring budget. In the slow season my UC sees 280 pts/wk and in the flu season we often see >450/wk. 40 patients/day in a 10 hour day feels incredibly slow with a good bit of downtime (most of these visits are pretty simple).
Med-peds would definitely be better suited than IM. A large portion of UC is pediatric. The best suited specialties for UC are EM>>>>Med/Peds>FP. That said UC is going to be pretty boring for a board-certed EM doc and you are going to have a hard time competing with the pay they can pull in EDs.
So having said that, I will say that owning an UC can be very lucrative but as said above it's not easy or everyone would do it. I opened an UC 5 years ago along with 4 other physician partners. I was the lead on the project and conservatively spent about 1500 hrs in the year leading up to opening doing research, writing business plans, meeting with banks, etc. That's a lot of time with a significant opportunity cost in terms of other things you could be doing. From a capital stand point you can plan on spending $1M-$2M to buy and build with an additional $200k-$500k for equipment and working capital depending on how quickly you hit profitability. We opened the doors with the 5 of us initially staffing it to get everything running the way we wanted and develop all of our systems. We all continued working full time in our ED so we didn't pay ourselves anything until we had become cash flow positive and had paid off all of our working capital loan. We became cash flow positive after 4 months and had paid off our working capital loan by month 7 or 8 if I remember correctly. We gradually transitioned ourselves out of clinical roles by hiring employee physicians. At this point we now have 3 employee physicians and each of us works 1 clinical shift every other month (no weekends or holidays). After paying out all expenses, the 5 of us split about $500k-750k/yr in what is essentially passive income at this point coming off of a single urgent care center. That's not too shabby, and if you were only splitting that 1 or 2 ways it would give you a very comfortable passive income.
I'm happy to answer any other questions.
You have 3 physicians a day in the clinic. I was modeling a small UC with a single NP being supervised remotely by a physician (who covers several UCs).
Congrats on pulling it off. Any links or sources you would recommend to get more insight on the topic/business aspects of urgent care? There seems to be some legit stuff on urgent care association of america but its rather pricey.
Sorry i didn't mean we hired 3 doctors to work each day. I meant we hired 3 doctors to staff it-- 1 full-time and 2 part-time. We still staff with one physician each day in the clinic and no midlevels.
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Thanks. UCAOA was where I did a good bit of my research but yes their lectures are pricey. Getting some advice from other locals is helpful as well.
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