GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Urgent care is everywhere. It is fast, flexible, and built for our busy lives. But local doctors say when convenience becomes the default, there can be a hidden cost.. your health.
Think about a moment that a lot of families know well. It is Friday night, your kid says their throat hurts, your ankle is swollen, and you cannot get in to see your doctor for weeks. So you do what more families are doing now: you head to Urgent Care.
Andrea Giamalva, chief medical officer at Experity Health, says the demand is tied to the way people live and what they expect.
“The consumers of today are looking for all of that. They want a retail experience. Amazon has created on-demand expectations in every aspect of our life, and so why not push that into the arena of healthcare?”
That shift is showing up in the data.
Who does not have a primary care doctor:
Source: Experity Health, national urgent care data
- Baby Boomers about 7 %
- Gen X roughly 17 to 20 %
- Millennials about 30 %
- Gen Z nearly 40 %
In other words, younger generations are far less likely to even have a primary care doctor, pushing more people toward on-demand care.
Here in northeast Wisconsin, urgent care clinics have expanded quickly, built to fit busy schedules.
Molly Uvaas, a physician assistant with Prevea Health urgent care, says the convenience is a big part of the appeal.
“Urgent Care is a good way for patients to seek care, because there’s the convenience factor. Of course, we have weekend hours, evening hours, we have multiple locations.”
Uvaas says urgent care is designed for a specific purpose. It is best for sudden problems that show up without warning.
“Most commonly, we see acute illnesses and injury. Acute meaning new, something that just kind of comes up unexpectedly, something that you didn’t plan for.”
But providers say problems can start when quick care begins to replace long-term care.
“Your visits to urgent care do not replace your ongoing relationship with your primary care provider.”
That is because primary care is where doctors track patterns over time, even when patients feel fine.
“We are not screening if you have blood pressure that’s trending in the wrong direction. We’re not looking at your blood sugars. That is why it is very important to have that relationship with your primary care provider.”
State health workforce data shows Wisconsin continues to face a shortage of primary care doctors, making it harder for many families to build those long-term relationships.
Dr. Todd Reynolds, a family practice physician with Prevea Health, says the hidden cost often shows up years later, when a follow-up never happened.
“If the person is feeling better, there’s an awfully big tendency to just not bother. If we miss an opportunity to diagnose someone with high blood pressure, they’ll be feeling fine. But then in a few years, when they have a stroke, and some ER doctor says, wow, you know, if you’d been treated for this high blood pressure, you wouldn’t be here having a stroke today.”
Both providers say there are red flags families should pay attention to, especially if urgent care becomes routine.
“People are kind of using urgent care, maybe to an extent that is a red flag for us. This is an ongoing issue. This could turn into something more serious.”
So what should families do moving forward?
Doctors say urgent care works well for sudden problems. But if it starts to feel like your go-to, that is the moment to step back and make a plan for longer-term care.
“We know our patients, and they know us, and we have this longitudinal relationship, and we can sometimes put things together and prevent a problem when they didn’t even see it coming.”
The takeaway is simple. Urgent care can solve today's problems. Primary care helps prevent the problems of tomorrow. Providers say many urgent care clinics can also help patients schedule follow-up before they leave, which can help connect those quick visits back to a long-term plan.
