Urgent care startup checklist

Numerous reasons are there for starting your own urgent care organization. These reasons encompass boosting your business skills, satisfying the medical needs of your society, and many more. Opening urgent care comes with many perks but also presents many challenges that can be overcome by implementing the right strategies. If you are an urgent provider who wants to have your own urgent care facility, then you must know the urgent care startup checklist to go through every step of running your business seamlessly. Having said that, one of the most common challenges faced by all urgent care clinics, particularly new ones, is accurately processing the billing and coding section to achieve maximum revenue. No worries because MedsIT Nexus urgent care billing services are there to assist you regarding your insurance contracts so you can take your new startup to the heights of success.

How to start an urgent care: The Ultimate urgent Care startup Checklist

Launching a new urgent care startup and making it successful necessitates significant expenses, investments, and costs; thus, it is a great concern for many practitioners, and they want to know how much does it cost to open an urgent care? The latest estimated urgent care startup cost ranges between $1-3 Million; however, it may vary depending upon several elements and factors such as location, goals, size, resources, equipment, marketing, etc. If we split the cost, the most significant amount of consuming elements are:

• Leasing commercial retail space or buying land costs approximately $35-85 per square foot.
• Building out & equipping the clinical place costs around $350-500K
• Staff salary costs around $250K
• Supporting staff for administrative tasks/billing costs around $100K
• Equipment, supplies & medications go around $100-300K
• Business licensing & legal fees cost approximately $50-150K
• Marketing, such as website, branding, etc, costs around $75-200K

Now that you have understood and mentally prepared for the cost, let's discuss the urgent care startup checklist.

Select a location

Choosing the location of opening an urgent care setup is critical because it plays a vital role in determining the success of your urgent care facility; therefore, there are many factors to consider while selecting the correct location. A good location aims to yield perks of operational costs, target patients, and increase revenue. Some essential steps to choose the right location include conducting an in-depth market analysis, assessing potential locations, evaluating financial implications, and making a final decision.

Factors to consider when choosing a location

Accessibility & patient convenience: Washington State Health Services states that adult patients can travel a distance of 32km and can spend approximately 28 minutes; keeping this point in mind, it is necessary for you to select the most convenient and easily accessible location (within 20 minutes of a residential area).
Competition: Determining the number of healthcare providers, the size of their practice, and their specialties will benefit you a lot because choosing an area in which a renowned healthcare provider is already present will increase the chances of coming patients, as they already visit that place.
Demographics: You need to analyze some important demographic factors such as age, education, income, and the economic level of the population because, in an area where more people with low incomes reside, the people of this area will prefer social security instead of seeking urgent care.

Choose and Create a Business Entity

An organization you create to run a business that determines how government taxes the business/company is called a business entity. It is run at the state level, so it must adhere to state laws. There are three main types of business entities, each with its taxation, legal framework, and liability structure. The most crucial step is choosing what kind of business entity you want to establish. Let’s dive into the types to make it easy for you to choose one.

1. Sole proprietorship: In this, a single person is the owner of the business, and the business is not required to register with the state. A sole proprietor is responsible for paying liabilities and taxes for the whole business.
2. Limited Liability Company (LLC): This legal entity allows businesses to be established by one or more people, requiring adherence to state and local regulations. It also provides more scalability and flexibility options and offers liability protection to its members. American Family Care (AFC) Franchise suggested choosing an LLC because it allows for tax benefits, growth potential, personal liability protection, and customer/patient trust.
3. Corporation: A corporation always exists separately from its owner; therefore, it can enter its own assets and contracts, pay taxes, recruit employees, and borrow or loan money. It has many responsibilities and rights under the law, and you must submit articles for incorporation, appoint directors, & issue shares; it is considered relatively complex.

Choose, research & register your urgent care center name

Both practical and legal considerations are applied while selecting a name; therefore, choose a resonant and memorable name that can quickly communicate who you are. After selecting a unique name for your urgent care center, it is a prerequisite to first research its availability because it might already be taken, leading to the risk of copyright infringement. Moreover, it is the requirement of state law that a new business should not select a name similar to an already existing entity.
After choosing and researching an impressive name, it is paramount to register your new entity with state and local governments.

Get an Employer Identification Number (EIN)

An EIN, also called Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) or business tax ID, is a nine-digit number that is received by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and is used for filing taxes. With this number, you can establish a business entity, file taxes separately, and open a separate bank account for your business. To get an EIN from the IRS website, you only need some basic details about your urgent care business (e.g., business name, address, and if you want to recruit extra employers) and social security number for verification.

State Licensure

American College of Emergency Physicians says that although the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine and the Urgent Care Association of America proposed criteria for urgent care, limited state licensing requirements and rules are still present. Although most states do not mandate licenses for urgent care practice operations, Arizona currently stands as a state necessitating licensure for urgent care clinics, although others, such as Florida and New Hampshire, may entail them under existing clinic regulations. These states' urgent care licensing requirements necessitate submitting business plans and monetary aspects for approval. Even in less stringent states, compliance with regulations is a requirement for starting a new clinic. To understand these regulations thoroughly, urgent care entrepreneurs must consult their state's Department of Health. Along with state licenses, clinics must secure a CLIA certificate for clinical lab tests like CBCs, LFT, urea tests, etc, and gain permission to conduct X-rays professionally.

Urgent care medical supplies

The essential urgent care equipment list is mentioned below.

Exam table	Physician stool
Step stool	Patient chair
Procedure light	IV stand
Nebulizer	Wheelchair
UA analyzer	Oxygen tank
Emergency supplies	Gloves, face mask and other PPE
Wound and skin care supplies	Needles & syringes
Testing and screening supplies	Scales & sterilizers
Thermometer	Stethoscope

Urgent care is a busy facility, and supplies can disappear without being tracked. Therefore, organizing, tracking, and managing basic equipment and supplies is essential using one of the three different inventory systems. Implementing one of these systems leads to reduced inventory shrinkage, decreased overordering probabilities, an optimally stocked examination room, and increased profitability.

1. Inventory management software: It is flexible and scalable, helping you gain invaluable data and records to develop an effective purchasing strategy.
2. Inventory list: Managing inventory and maintaining consistency and track is somewhat hectic and demands more effort.
3. Inventory spreadsheet: It has pros and cons, but the pros outweigh the cons. For instance, it may cause human errors but is still considered a good starting point. Moreover, it cannot be linked to QR or barcodes and does not correctly show images. However, it is still used because it is inexpensive and provides urgent care providers with a headstart on updating their technology and equipment.

Negotiate contract with payers

You need to negotiate beneficial contracts with insurers to lead your urgent care startup to success. However, getting a contract is not easy because you are new and your worth has yet to be tested; however, some tricks will assist you in achieving your goals

Tips for Creating Profitable Urgent Care Contract Negotiations

Select payer smartly: Analyze the demographics in the area to get to know which type of insurance coverage your patients have. Moreover, you need to analyze the perks and cons of joining MCOs and other insurance companies and make efforts to get contracts from national commercial insurers and Medicare.
Be on time: You must keep in mind that it takes 30 to 100 days to get a contact from payers; however, it is highly recommended that you begin the contracting process 6 to 8 months before launching.
Get copies of payer contracts: If you do not know the baseline, you cannot negotiate. Therefore, you should use the contracts and fee schedules to help you achieve an estimated 3% to 5% increase.
Present a strong case: Make a convincing proposal to help payers assess and evaluate your case. Your case proposal can be comprehensive by including the following components.

• Enlist all components to run your urgent care successfully, such as extra hours, overhead expenses, crew salaries, etc.
• If you have physicians but physician assistants, always mention that.
• Including a letter of reference will be helpful.

Watch for specificities: When negotiating and signing a value-based contract, you must consider factors such as the MFN clause, initial term, which products are included, case rate versus fee for service, and discounts on mid-level rendered services. Moreover, you should not neglect billing requirements related to rendering provider NPI, POS, whether mid-levels should bill independently or under the supervising MD/DO, Group NPI, and special modifiers for mid-levels.
Differentiate yourself: By showing payers that you are rendering value-based care and that you are going the extra mile, like spending extra hours and providing unique services that other providers are not offering, like telehealth, there are more chances that payers will increase the payment.

Marketing

Promoting using a combination of offline and online marketing techniques, such as the Internet, radio, TV, and other relevant advertising channels, effectively reaches your target audience and makes them aware of your services when they seek immediate medical attention. To establish a robust appearance for your urgent care, follow the below-given steps.

Step 1: Create a website:

Forbes states that a majority of people visit your websites before reaching out to you, so a website proves to be a break or make in making more revenue. Forbes further elaborates on the perks of having a website for your business because it increases credibility, answers people's questions and confusions, increases chances of getting leads, increases patient base, and is a way to keep people updated.

Tips to establish a beneficial website

Make it easy to find: Make your website searchable by incorporating SEO-optimized strategies, keywords, content marketing, and ads.

Place your contact information at the top: David Brown, CEO of Web.com, says that your contact information must be visible at the top of the homepage so that people don't have to search for your number or address to reach you.

Give a call to action: Encourage readers to take an action by giving them an invitation such as button, link, or verbiage to take action.

Make it patient-oriented: Some people visit your website to gain information, sometimes for educational content, and often to learn about your services. Thus, consider your patients' standpoint and insert evergreen content that is valuable to them.

Step 2: Promote on social media:
Social media marketing is a tool for financial success, assisting in communicating with the target audience and providing effective ways for business expansion. According to Walden University, many people (69%) use social media to get information about the services you offer. However, acing in online marketing mandates resources to gain followers and create quality content.
Step 3: Pay for advertisements:
One of the most common ways to boost your posts and get followers and a target audience is paid boosted posts on your social media accounts. Another way is traditional television ads, which demand more money because they reach a broad range of audiences. Search engines offer pay-per-click ads to make your post appear at the top of the result page.

Financial setup

Open a separate business bank account: Mixing personal and business finances is not unusual, leading to financial disruption and distorted RCM. Therefore, opening a separate business account is mandatory. Validus states some common benefits of opening a separate account, which include better financial management, organized expense tracking, credibility and professionalism, protection of personal assets, and simplified tax filing.
Leverage technology: Implementing different software such as HER (HITECH being the primary driver), Practice management software and cloud-based software encourages safe health information exchange, patient health portals, diagnostic support, clinical decision support, value-based care, and billing. Moreover, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) in urgent care are renowned for maintaining satisfactory billing processes encompassing provider and insurance setups, working payor denials, the 60-day refund rule, and timely submission prerequisites.
Establish an organized payment system: Over the past few years, the payment system has been widely transformed because, besides traditional methods of cheques and cash, it has produced diverse payment methods like debit cards, general-purpose pre-paid cards, and credit cards. Some other modalities include mobile payment systems, Apple Pay, and Android Pay, along with central banks being in use. A "payment management system" helps monitor your payment operations, automates invoicing, billing, and reporting tasks, reduces errors, and integrates different payment methods.
Partnership with a billing company: The task of administration and billing has become very tricky, and reimbursements from federal and state agencies are becoming daunting to manage and track. Moreover, complications of regulatory requirements are escalating, and patient expectations are becoming more significant each year; therefore, partnering with a billing company is paramount. According to research, outsourcing renders many miracles, including reducing operating costs, offering remunerations to healthcare facilities, letting you concentrate on the business of serving patients, and many more. Plus urgent care billing brings in compliance issues. If financial practices of an urgent care facility do not resonate with the latest State and Payer urgent care billing reimbursement guidelines they will not receive reimbursement. Therefore, to observe compliance and receive reimbursement in a timely manner, outsource your urgent care billing services.

Start your urgent care center with MedsIT Nexus

Consider MedsIT Nexus to gain valuable services equipped with the latest technology & infrastructure, HIPAA compliance, expertise, and professionalism. Our services help you manage your administrative tasks efficiently, timely, and expertly because our crew is certified and implements different tactics combined with experience to augment your reimbursement and boost your urgent care startup reputation. Don't wait anymore and contact us because we are available 24/7 to provide a better customer experience.