Those of us in the on-demand medicine space all face a daunting challenge. Our industry attracts a mass market of consumers who have much higher expectations from their experience, the same expectations they have of retailers like Starbucks, Amazon or Target. We also face a crowded market of large and small players and much greater saturation, especially in urban and suburban markets.…

Tom Charland, Merchant Medicine Founder and Former CEO, Announces 14th Annual ConvUrgentCare Symposium: I am excited to announce that registration is now open for the 14th Annual ConvUrgentCare® Symposium, taking place on September 6-9, 2022 in Scottsdale, Arizona at the iconic Hotel Valley Ho.…

World-class AI diagnosis software merges with the nation’s premier healthcare consumerism consulting group. …

Bricks-and-mortar is not going away. Consumers expect a new and different experience as well as thoughtful integration of virtual and in-person access to services. This ideology extends to all aspects of the US retail and healthcare industries. Understanding the keys to successful integration of virtual and in-person services is what will drive the long-term relevance and survivability of health systems everywhere.…

Texas Health Resources has launched a new urgent care model that offers patients a personalized experience from the moment they walk through the door.

With the opening of 20 locations across North Texas, Texas Health is investing approximately $44 million in Texas Health Breeze Urgent Care,™ a modern approach to urgent care that offers patients fast, convenient and personalized care with upscale amenities and transparent, affordable pricing.

In Part 1 of this article, we posed the question: Are we entering a new era of ambulatory care where a whole set of structural changes are driven by the combination of new technologies, demographic changes and the many influences of Covid-19? The answer is an unquestionable yes. What is not so clear is the extent of those structural changes.…

Running an urgent care platform was already getting complicated before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. By this past March it looked as if the end of the urgent care world was upon us. Patient visits came to a halt for six weeks or more. Those who jumped on the testing bandwagon managed to kick back into gear. But this may be a short-lived salve for something more dramatic coming down the road.…

The urgent care industry has grown significantly over the last 10 years, with lots of smart money flowing into the sector from private equity, publicly traded health insurance companies and large health systems.…

We have many health system clients who ask: “If we were to start from scratch, what should our urgent care model look like?” The answer is to look not at the current state of urgent care, no matter how slick, consumer-friendly or retail-oriented it may appear. Unfortunately, many health systems are caught up in the look and feel of urgent care, many of them hiring executives from places like Neiman Marcus or Amazon. There is also the “rear guard” focus on justifying purchased medical group assets, referring patients downstream to places that may not necessarily be expeditious or economical, and spending large sums on outdated, system-level patient experience programs.…

During the last six months I have been struck by how suddenly the economics, culture and technology underpinnings of healthcare are changing. These changes seem poised to disrupt the on-demand medicine landscape in a major way. …

Someone once asked me why I write so often about primary care when Merchant Medicine’s focus as a consulting firm is urgent care strategy, development and operations. It is a very legitimate question, and one that naturally leads to what I believe is a roadmap of how primary care and urgent care will evolve over the next few years.…

While researching this article, I came across the following quotes: one from a doctor and one from a patient: From the doctor: “The inability to control the way we practice medicine and deliver care to patients is the reason that physicians are leaving medicine in record numbers. I can tell you that on an ordinary working day, if I didn’t have a single patient to see, I would still be busy for eight or nine hours doing nothing but paperwork and phone calls that are directly related to managed-care issues.”…

Each year we typically use the discussion topics from our strategy symposium as a jumping-off point for this forecast issue. It turns out this approach tends to be fairly reliable and predictive in terms of the trends to expect, not only in the coming year but for two or three years.…

It seems like every year for the past five years, those of us watching the telemedicine industry say it’s about to take off. Indeed, we continue to see glimpses of momentum. On the technology front prices have come down and quality continues to improve.…