Older adults are turning more commonly to urgent care centers and retail clinics for their immediate medical needs, according to a new poll of 2,657 adults ages 50 to 80 completed in 2023. About 60% of people in this age group have visited an urgent care center or a retail health clinic during the past two years.
Urgent care is the most popular alternative path for care for older adults and middle-aged adults. Of those populations, 47% visited one at least once and 23% went more than once within the past two years. Among older adults, 28% went to retail clinics and 47% used urgent care centers; 9% went to a clinic at their worksite and 5% had received care from a traveling provider in a vehicle.
Of the of older adults who have gone to an alternative clinic, 75% said they plan to go again in the next two years, the survey showed.
“The rapid rise in availability of these kinds of clinics, which typically offer walk-in convenience, expanded hours and self-scheduling of appointments in locations close to home, work or shopping, has transformed the American health care landscape in less than two decades,” Jeffrey Kullgren, MD, director of the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, said in a statement.
Of those polled, 43% who hadn’t gotten care at an alternative clinic said they are likely to do so in the next two years.
That doesn’t mean older adults don’t like their primary care doctors. About 52% of those who’d gone to an alternative clinic said the quality of care was better with their regular doctor, and 67% said they felt more connected to their primary care doctor. But 43% said the alternative clinic was more convenient than their primary care doctor.
“With the nationwide shortage of primary care providers, it’s important to understand how this age group, with generally higher medical needs, views and uses this type of care,” Kullgren added.
