Earnhart & Associates, Inc.
  1000 Westbank Drive
  Suite 5B
  Austin, Texas 78746

  Phone: 512.320.8580
  Fax: 512.320.8581
  Toll Free: 800.705.1793  

Urgent Care Centers (UCC)

The use of Urgent Care Centers (UCC)  can be a significant entry point for a hospital or integrated delivery system since it allows patients access when they believe there is a need for care. The UCC can be the entry point into an established primary care network or be the primary care network itself, depending on the philosophical approach taken, the way in which the facility is staffed, and the marketing of the centers. Entry points often are the best means to secure marketplace position in a highly competitive environment.

Earnhart & Associates is positioned to assist you in this venture. More than talking about developing centers as an outside consultant, we have lived the development and the day to day management of them. This includes the management side as well as the medical (nurse-physician) practice side. We have evaluated centers owned by hospitals to improve their profitability, patient satisfactions and physician-employee environment. Centers established and evaluated have spanned the spectrum from urgent (no primary care) to those that embody the full range of services in ambulatory care, to work related centers only (with appropriate involvement of therapies).

During the past 15 years of providing services to UCCs, medical practices and hospitals, we have developed planning instruments, software practices for the scheduling and development of centers, and software packages to assist in the financial proforma needed for proper business planning. We have also developed the Urgent Care Center Policies and Procedures Manual, used by more than 250 UCCs across the country. With our understanding areas of fraud and abuse, including knowledge of the reimbursement requirements in all States, we are able to bring multiple facets to the decision making process and prevent "false starts." A factor in the goal of eliminating false starts is our team of interdisciplinary consultants (health care business people, physicians, nurses, and others).