It's not just private equity pulling these shenanigans. Our local Children's chain is a non-profit and they pull some real shady shit.
People overuse doctors. Most of what younger people (under, say, 50) go to the doctor for, a good NP can do just as well or better. One of my weird hobbyhorses is how dumb the name "nurse practitioner" is; they should just call them "associate physicians".
(Note here that we're talking about "urgent care", which are clinics run by health chains, staffed with a doctor or two, a couple NPs, and a bunch of nurses; "urgent care" is not the ER, which is a thing people gotten hung up on HN about before, because I guess every country calls their ER something different. Going to the ER for routine care is insane.)
Even then it was phrased as more "If it were me, and I had similar comorbidities, I'd get that looked at ASAP"
Ended up hospitalized for 4 days.
Well, there are "physician assistants", PAs, which are the same rung of the ladder as NP but via different path. Areas tend to somehow converge either on NPs or PAs, but not both so often.
My background is CA & NYC. I am able to get same day or same week (if less urgent) appts by calling my primary (PCP). In the event that my PCP has no availability or it's late in the day, I'll consider going to urgent care since it's the only thing open.
I can understand other people posting how hard it is to find a good PCP (or even dentist frankly). I got lucky and found a good, local PCP that I've been seeing for years.
The ER and urgent care at my local hospital are next door to each other. Until the last year or so, it was the only urgent care in the area (and is the only ER).
It works extremely well with my doctor's health system, and I'll add that my doctor's health system is notorious in the area for sucking to work with, so if I switched to, like, Rush or Northwestern, presumably it'd be even better.
One argument could be that treating non emergency cases would ruin availability or increase costs, both of which seems like big assumptions at a system design level (vs the actual constraints and incentives that have lead to the existing service configuration).
I'm sure that there are regulatory drivers, but I expect they are things we should seek (as a society) to improve, rather than accept and ignore.
Primary care is good for dealing with ongoing issues. It is cheaper because only staff what they need. But have to schedule appointments far out. They could leave slots open for urgent issues but then would cost more.
Urgent care is to handle the urgent but minor issues. Stuff that doctor could handle if they were open or had appointments. They are more expensive since they are open longer hours and less likely to get insurance.
One thing that would help fix the system is lots more free 24-hour urgent care clinics. That would keep people out of ER.
Agree NP is a poor term.
Administrative bloat is killing these places
The administrators are fucking vipers. These orgs are rotted at the heart. They do everything they can to stretch the staff thin while shifting their targets and gaslighting them into thinking they're underperforming. Execs are doing great, but in the meantime they're hemorrhaging docs, nurses, and office staff because the conditions suck.