It’s no secret that urgent care facilities can be a godsend for millions of folks all across the United States. Whether they’re looking for relief from back pain or the common cold or they need help with a muscle strain or an ankle sprain, more than three million Americans visit urgent care facilities each week, according to the Urgent Care Association of America.
It’s easy to see why American opt to go to their local urgent care when they need to: the wait times are shorter, the costs are much less, they offer convenient medical care and most urgent cares offer treatment for an ever-growing list of common, non-life-threatening illnesses and symptoms.
For as much as urgent care facilities benefit patients when it comes to medical care, working at an urgent care can be very beneficial for any one of the 20,000 physicians currently working at urgent cares across the nation. For physicians looking for a locum tenens opportunity, working at an urgent care can offer many benefits including:
- Less burnout: Anyone who works long hours in a particular field runs the risk of burnout. Studies have shown however that the burnout risk is even higher among nurses, physicians and social workers just to name a few professions. As a result, opting for an opportunity to work at an urgent care is a good choice to avoid burnout.
How is that possible? Urgent cares usually have a slower pace and doctors and nurses tend to be happier working in these places. They’re able to delegate mundane tasks such as paperwork and they’re able to take more time off, without having to constantly be on call. Ultimately, working at an urgent care may help doctors rediscover their passion for what they do. Because an urgent care offers treatments for so many things, physicians get to work on a variety of illnesses and ailments, but with less of the stress so often found in emergency rooms. - Better hours: It’s true that most urgent care facilities are open longer than say a lot of general practices, but working at an urgent care offers those specialists the chance to be flexible with their time. In this way, they can spend part of their time working at an urgent care and part of their time at a hospital if they want to. The same is true of assistants and NPs, who end up working a lot less hours than they would in the ER.
- Better opportunities: For folks looking for a locum tenens role, job opportunities at urgent care clinics are still on the upswing. While 20,000 physicians currently work in an urgent care capacity, there are always job openings. That means there’s more of a demand for NPs, PAs, regular doctors and even locum tenens physicians, so those looking for work can find a job pretty easily.
- More focus on patients: Because urgent care facilities offer a wide variety of treatments, doctors have chances every day to make a significant impact on the lives of the patients they see. Even simple things like a smile, a kind word or taking a little bit of time to listen to patients can make a bigger difference than doctors might think. Making an impact means more than likely doctors will be involved in helping a patient make financial decisions. Since urgent cares offer price transparency, doctors can come up with creative treatments to help patients on a budget.
- First-hand experience: Working at an urgent care can give employees (especially those who are fresh out of school) the chance to get amazing first-hand experience. It’s likely that every day and perhaps even every hour is going to feature something different, so an intern or a doctor in training will constantly get the chance to learn on the job.
By choosing to work at an urgent care facility, those in training or those looking for locum tenens opportunities, employees will get first-hand experience and a chance to fuel their passion for helping patients and making a difference in their patients’ lives.
