Why Simplicity Urgent Care is Filling an Urgent Need

Having worked in emergency rooms from DC to Boston, I’ve watched thousands of patients without life-threatening problems wait for hours before being seen by a doctor.

Seeing this happen over and over again made me wonder: Why did so many people end up in the ER who didn’t have to be there?

So I began asking my patients why they chose an emergency department over other sources of health care.

Based on their feedback, here are the top three reasons patients choose go to the ER:

1. They don’t have a relationship with a regular medical doctor.

As the health-insurance market has become more competitive, businesses have started to change insurance companies more frequently to maximize the benefitsfor their employees. When this happens, employees receive new insurance cards, and if the current primary-care doctor does not participate with the new insurance company, employees have to find a new doctor. Unfortunately, this situation is common.

As many people have discovered, finding a new doctor requires overcoming several hurdles. If you have a new primary-care doctor, then you need to schedule a new-patient visit, but those are typically scheduled several months in the future. When you have an acute problem, obviously you can’t wait several months until after the new-patient visit — you need care now.

The population of Washington, DC is by nature transient; inhabitants frequently move for new jobs and new opportunities. When you arrive in a new area, finding a new doctor isn’t always high up on your list of priorities — until you get sick. Then once again, you are looking for a new doctor who can’t see
you immediately.

2. They have a regular doctor, but he or she has no available same-day appointments, even for acute illness.

Primary-care doctors are in high demand, and they fill their days with appointments to see as many patients as possible while in the office. In the past, doctors would leave space open on their schedule to accommodate sick visits. With the current state of health care, however, these free sick-visit spots are becoming scarce.

When you call a primary care doctor, the front desk staff assesses the doctor’s availability, and typically reports that the doctor has no spots available to see you today. The receptionist is then trained to refer you to an emergency department or to let you find care on your own.

3. Their health concern requires more care than what a doctor’s office can provide — such as procedures, X-rays, and on-site lab tests — but doesn’t need the full armamentarium of a hospital-based emergency department.

With technology playing such an important role in health care, medical treatment often requires X-rays or procedures such as laceration repairs and casting. Since technology is expensive and can only by justified if the doctor’s office uses it frequently, many physicians choose to refer the patients who need technology elsewhere rather than purchase it themselves.

The sites that have the technology are now limited to hospitals and specialists’ offices, which use it mainly to care for the own patients.

Here’s another solution: Simplicity Urgent Care

These responses not only intrigued me — they gave me an idea.

Because many of the ER patients I spoke with said that they would rather go elsewhere because of the high expense and long wait times at emergency rooms, but few options were available that would fit their needs at that particular time, I decided the time was right to establish an urgent care center in Arlington, VA.

In early 2010, I joined forced with my friend and fellow ER doc Dr. John Maguire, the medical director for three of INOVA’s freestanding emergency rooms in Northern Virginia, where he oversees more than 75,000 patient visits annually.

And on November 22, we opened the doors of Simplicity Urgent Care, a new solution that we believe will satisfy the needs of our patients and referring physicians.

Keeping it simple

Dr. Maguire and I know that finding top-notch health care can be complicated, and the last thing patients want to do when they are sick is navigate a complex structure. Actually, the same holds true when they are well.

That’s why we focus on making every visit efficient, and most importantly, simple.

Our center offers on-demand care with a lab, a digital X-ray machine, and a room equipped for procedures previously only performed in the hospital emergency department. At Simplicity Urgent Care, we believe it’s important to have this technology on-site because it allows us to better care for our patients and expand the scope of conditions we can treat.

And unlike many retail health-care clinics, a doctor sees every patient at Simplicity Urgent Care.