Many Americans today suffer from everyday wounds or illnesses, and when they do, they may visit local urgent care centers for help. These friendly local urgent care clinics are staffed with nurse practitioners and physicians who can treat a wide range of non life-threatening ailments for their guests, and many of these clinics also have their own pharmacy with trained pharmacists on hand. A person may look up a local urgent care business with an online search on a victim’s behalf, and they can find something local with a search including their town or city’s name or even their ZIP code. A search such as “good urgent care centers Boston MA” or “urgent care clinics in San Francisco CA”. But what does it cost to start an urgent care clinic? Entrepreneurs and other business professionals are concerned with setting up new urgent care startups, and the question of what does it cost to start an urgent care clinic is an important one to answer. The price will vary based on a number of factors, ranging from the number of personnel on staff to the location. Asking “what does it cost to start an urgent care clinic” may involve consulting a number of professionals who can help.

Urgent Care Centers Today

Ever since the year 2000, Americans have had walk-in medical facilities to visit and many more have appeared since then. By the year 2016, around 2,000 such clinics could be found across the United States, and that number is still growing. By 2018, some 2,800 such centers could be found, and by that year, there were 14 times as many retail medical clinics as just 10 years ago. Where can be they be found? Most major cities and towns have a number of such clinics, and they may be only a short drive away for most urban and suburban residents. A person can drive a victim to such a clinic, or they may take a taxi or a bus there if they need to.

Some such clinics are built into larger retailers such as Target and Walmart, and they are known as retail clinics. They often have a pharmacy as well, for the convenience of shoppers who visit the retailer at large. A shopper may get their prescription drugs refilled during their visit, and other medicine that they may need. Meanwhile, other urgent care clinics are built into a hospital, but it should be noted that the services and staff there are separate and distinct from those of the hospital at large. A patient at the clinic can get care and never interact with hospital staff at all.

However, some smaller towns or rural centers may not have an urgent care clinic in them, and entrepreneurs may be interested in investing in one there. In other cases, an abandoned building may be available in a town or city, and can be bought and transformed into a walk in clinic. An entrepreneur in either case may wonder “what does it cost to start an urgent care clinic?” They may soon find some answers.

Starting Up the Clinic

Commercial real estate lawyers may be consulted for purchasing a piece of property or building a new one, and for construction, zoning laws should be taken into consideration. The project owner may hire a number of construction teams to build the facility in a rural area, and the project owner will coordinate with their city and state governments to ensure that codes and regulations are being followed. Construction lawyers are relevant here, and they can make sure that all paperwork is handled properly as the medical clinic is being constructed on a plot of land. A finished building will still need its furnishings, ranging from treatment rooms to the waiting room to the pharmacy. The owner will also hire trained medical staff, and turn to suppliers for medicine and medical tools for them to use. That, and they may launch a marketing campaign so that nearby residents are aware of the new clinic. Overall, answering “what does it cost to start an urgent care clinic” ranges from construction and land purchase to construction lawyers to working with medical suppliers and a marketing team, among others.