The High Cost of an Unnecessary Injury Referral

Unnecessary Injury Referrals in Urgent Care Clinics

Ramifications of Referring Out Injuries to Specialists

Sending Urgent Care center patients directly to a specialist can be unnecessary because there are treatments that can be done on-site. Many Urgent Care doctors refer out to specialists without even trying to offer treatment. This is resulting in acuity degradation or people looking at Urgent Care centers as just glorified triage centers, not places where they can get the treatment they need for their injuries.

Urgent Care centers can serve as a one-stop for injuries, like fractures and similar ailments, not a place where patients stop to get referred somewhere else. This is becoming a trend at Urgent Care centers that is resulting in more orthopedic Urgent Care centers popping up everywhere. While this is profitable for them, it is unnecessarily cutting into profits for Urgent Care centers around the country.

High Cost of Unnecessary Referrals

When you’re talking about the high cost of unnecessary referrals, it’s not just one loss. You’re losing the global fee from the injury and any care associated with it. You’re undoubtedly losing direct revenue, but the losses extend well past that.

As more and more customers get referred to other facilities, you’re telling the patients and the community that you can’t serve their needs. In time, they’ll skip right over you and go directly to one of the ortho Urgent Cares that can be found in many places. You’re telling them that you refer people, you don’t treat them. This is clearly not the message you want to send.

When this continues to happen, you are not only losing current patients but future ones. This can be detrimental to any Urgent Care office. People in the community talk and when one knows that you referred them for an injury you could have treated, they will tell their friends.  When their friends get a similar injury, they’ll skip you. This pattern will continue with no end in sight.

The same is true for workers’ comp injuries. Companies will no longer send employees to an Urgent Care center, they will send them directly to the ortho care center that you referred their first employee to. They will be under the impression that you can’t treat those injuries when you really can. This will create a domino effect that can result in Urgent Care centers dramatically losing revenue.

Contact OccDocOne Today!

You can avoid making referrals for many injuries with the help of OccDocOne. OccDocOne provides Urgent Care centers the knowledge they need to treat a wide variety of injuries with our QuickCheck for Occ Med app. The program contains detailed information and videos that Urgent Care centers can use on-demand to treat patients immediately. 

The knowledge OccDocOne contains is top-notch and invaluable. It’s an easy-to-use system that’s also economical. Contact us today to schedule a Zoom meeting where we can walk you through the process.