The Rise of Urgent Care Physician Jobs
- Article by:Health Career Center
What Does an Urgent Care Physician Do?
Urgent Care Physicians are medical professionals that provide health care services to individuals at walk-in clinics. Typically, urgent care centers or walk-in clinics treat patients who have non-emergency medical conditions or problems, but are unable to meet with their primary care physician in time to be treated.
Urgent Care Physicians are typically responsible for the following tasks, although these vary based on the location, size, and specialization of the urgent care or walk-in center:
- Performing physical examinations
- Diagnosing and creating a treatment plan for a variety of illnesses
- Referring serious conditions or illnesses for treatment by a specialist or hospital in the area
- Ordering, reviewing, and diagnosing diagnostic tests
- Writing prescriptions
- Administering vaccinations
- Supervising Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants at the clinic
The Rise of Urgent Care Physician Jobs
The demand for Urgent Care Physicians has been steadily increasing for several years and continues to grow due to patient demand for convenience and the lack of available primary care physician appointments, especially for after-hours and weekend care.
Patients want immediate access to medical care, but due to the influx of individuals that now have access to health care in the U.S., primary care providers and emergency rooms are inundated with patients, creating a shortage of care providers.
Currently, there are around 7,100 urgent care centers in the U.S. (over 9,000 when considering retail health clinics), with growth expected as retail health clinics become more popular and accessible.
The rapid development of retail health clinics has also increased demand for Urgent Care Physician jobs. Due to the profitability of retail health clinics at places like Walgreens, CVS, and various supermarkets, these urgent care-type clinics will grow, resulting in more Urgent Care Physician job openings for medical professionals.
Increased specialization, such as imaging offerings, at urgent care centers has also helped increase demand for specialized Urgent Care Physicians as well. With more urgent care centers offering these types of services, the demand for Urgent Care Physicians with specializations will see growth.
Salary Info for Urgent Care Physicians
The rising demand for Urgent Care Physicians, along with the need for specialized individuals to fill these roles, results in favorable job stability as well as an attractive average salary range of $155,438 to $208,3335, according to the 2006 AMGA Physician Compensation Survey. A more recent salary evaluation by Glassdoor found that the average salary for Urgent Care Physicians was around $182,880.
If you are interested in pursuing a career in Urgent Care medicine, click here to view various Urgent Care Physician jobs currently available throughout the U.S.