Urgent care marketing statistics 2026

The Urgent Care Association counted 14,382 urgent care centers in the US in mid-2023, up from 7,220 in 2014 (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). The association notes that reported counts vary by source, so treat this as its count under its own definition. It excludes retail clinics inside pharmacies and traditional primary care offices.

The count rose every year in the series, including through the pandemic. The same paper reports 11,481 centers at the end of 2019 and 14,075 at the end of 2022 (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023).

Source for every row: Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023.

Where the centers are

Three states account for the largest counts in the association's 2023 year-to-date table: California (1,304), Texas (1,249) and Florida (1,013). New York (842) and North Carolina (558) follow (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). The paper also states that over 78 percent of the US population lives within a 10-minute drive of an urgent care center, and that suburban centers grew nearly twenty percent from 2019 to 2022 (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023).

Format varies too. In the association's 2022 operations benchmarking data, 68.9 percent of centers offered traditional urgent care, 10.3 percent specialized in high-acuity urgent care and 8 percent were pediatric-only (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). Over 67 percent were open every day of the week.

What it means for your marketing

Density is the story. When most residents have a center within a short drive, patients are not choosing between urgent care and nothing. They are choosing between you and the center two exits down. That makes your Google Business Profile, your posted hours and your review count the deciding factors at the moment of search. Treat each location as its own local market with its own listing, landing page and review routine. If you run a pediatric or high-acuity format, say so in the first line of every listing and ad, because that is the difference a parent or employer is scanning for.

US emergency departments recorded 155.4 million visits in 2022, and 40.6 percent of patients were seen in fewer than 15 minutes (CDC NCHS FastStats, 2022 data). The Urgent Care Association estimates its centers treated almost 206 million non-emergent cases in 2022 (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). The two figures come from different methods, so treat them as scale markers, not a head-to-head count.

Federal data also shows 43.5 million injury-related emergency department visits in 2022, and only 11.5 percent of all ED visits led to hospital admission (CDC NCHS FastStats, 2022 data). Many of the rest are the low-acuity visits an urgent care center is built to handle.

Daily volume per center

In the association's 2022 operations benchmarking report, the median center saw 56 patients per day. That broke down into 40 provider visits, five occupational medicine visits, four workers' compensation visits, four nurse visits and three digital health visits (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). The paper notes volume is seasonal and usually spikes in late fall and winter with respiratory illness. It also reports that, from 2019 to 2020, centers managed a 60 percent increase in per-center patient visits (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023).

Growth in insurance claims

FAIR Health, a nonprofit that holds a large private claims database, reported that urgent care center claim lines grew 1,725 percent from 2007 to 2016. Emergency room claim lines grew 229 percent over the same period (FAIR Health, 2018). Acute respiratory infections were the most common diagnostic category in urgent care centers in 2016.

Price signals patients feel

The same FAIR Health release put the 2016 median charge for a 30-minute new patient office visit at $294 in an office, $242 in an urgent care center and $109 in a retail clinic (FAIR Health, 2018). Separately, KFF found that privately insured enrollees spent $646 out of pocket, on average, for an emergency department visit, using 2019 claims data (KFF, 2022).

What it means for your marketing

Patients choose under stress, so your job is to make the right choice obvious. Publish a clear "urgent care or ER?" page that lists what you treat and tells people with emergency symptoms to call 911. Avoid any claim that discourages emergency care. Plan budgets around respiratory season: raise search bids and staffing before fall, not after the waiting room fills. Do not quote another provider's prices in ads. If you mention cost, keep it to your own self-pay rates or a general statement that urgent care visits typically cost less than ER visits for the same minor problem, and check that claim with counsel.

By 2022, 94 percent of urgent care centers in the association's benchmarking data offered telemedicine, up from 1.8 percent in the 2018 report (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). The jump came in two steps: 29 percent in the report released in January 2020, then 87 percent by June 2020 as the pandemic began.

The association says telehealth is offered "not because it is profitable" but to meet patient expectations and stay competitive (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). Digital health visits made up three of the median 56 daily patient encounters in 2022 (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023).

Patient-side use

On the patient side, 37.0 percent of US adults used telemedicine in the past 12 months in 2021 (CDC NCHS Data Brief 445, 2022). Use was higher among women (42.0 percent) than men (31.7 percent). It rose with age, from 29.4 percent among adults 18 to 29 to 43.3 percent among those 65 and over (CDC NCHS Data Brief 445, 2022). It was 40.3 percent in large central metro counties and 27.5 percent in noncore rural areas.

What it means for your marketing

Telehealth works best as a second door, not a separate brand. Offer it on the same pages as walk-in care, with a clear line on which problems can be handled by video and which need an in-person exam. Older adults use telemedicine more than many operators assume, so do not write it off as a young-patient channel. Keep the sign-up flow simple and HIPAA-safe: no ad pixels on intake or booking screens, and a Business Associate Agreement with every vendor that touches patient data. Track telehealth visits as their own conversion so you can see whether promotion is adding demand or just moving walk-ins online.

Ownership has swung back and forth. In the association's data, physicians owned 54.1 percent of centers in 2008 and hospitals 24.8 percent. In 2022, physician ownership was 27 percent, hospital-owned or joint-venture centers were 52.8 percent, and corporate entities were 14.6 percent (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023). In 2023, sole ownership rose to 52 percent and hospital or joint-venture ownership fell to 33 percent.

The insured population

In 2024, 92.0 percent of people in the US had health insurance for some or all of the year. Employment-based insurance was the most common type, covering 53.8 percent of the population. Medicare covered 19.1 percent and Medicaid 17.6 percent (US Census Bureau, 2025).

Workforce pressure

The AAMC projects a physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036, and projects the population aged 65 and older to grow by 34.1 percent (AAMC, 2024). The association's paper links shrinking primary care access to rising demand for walk-in care (Urgent Care Association white paper, 2023).

What it means for your marketing

Ownership shapes how you market. Hospital-affiliated centers can lean on referral pathways and system brand trust, but often carry slower approval cycles. Independent operators can move faster on local search and reviews. Either way, insurance is a top filter for patients, so list accepted plans clearly and keep them current on every listing. Rising supply costs mean marketing has to earn its keep: tie spend to booked visits and visit mix, not clicks. Where primary care access is thin, position the center for follow-up and routine needs too, within what your clinicians actually provide.

Every figure on this page comes from a primary source we opened and checked in October 2026. We used federal agencies (CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the FTC), a national professional association (the Urgent Care Association) and nonprofit research bodies (FAIR Health, KFF, the AAMC and Pew Research Center).

• Each number carries its source and year inline. Where a source reports a survey year and a release year, we give both where it helps.
• We did not average or combine sources. Federal survey estimates, association benchmarking data and claims data use different methods. We present them side by side and say so.
• We left out figures we could not trace to the publisher, including commonly repeated numbers from vendor blogs and aggregator sites.
• Some data is older than 2026. The association's center count runs to mid-2023, and FAIR Health's claims comparison covers 2007 to 2016. We kept them because no newer primary figure exists for the same measure.

We will refresh this page when NCHS, BLS or the Urgent Care Association publish new data. For the wider picture across specialties, see our US healthcare marketing statistics 2026. If you want help turning these numbers into a plan for your centers, see our urgent care marketing agency page or book a call with the US team.