According to Forbes, urgent care is disrupting American healthcare despite often charging more than a traditional primary care visit, flipping the classic disruption model on its head. Dr. Andrea Giamalva, Chief Medical Officer at urgent care IT company Experity, reveals that between 40% and 80% of urgent care patients have no primary care provider listed. The generational split is stark: nearly 40% of Gen Z lacks a traditional primary care relationship, compared to 30% of millennials, 20% of Gen X, and just 7-10% of baby boomers. This shift is happening against a backdrop of a projected shortage of 20,000 to 80,000 primary care physicians by 2037. The urgent care model is succeeding by offering same-day access, wait times under 45 minutes, and location convenience, siphoning patients from both overwhelmed primary care offices and expensive emergency departments.
The Good-Enough Paradox
Here’s the thing: Clayton Christensen’s classic disruption theory said winners start by being cheaper. But urgent care is a fascinating case of winning by being better on the dimensions people actually care about right now. On paper, your co-pay might be a bit higher. But if you can’t get an appointment with your primary doc for three weeks, that cheaper price is meaningless. Urgent care offers a “good enough” clinical solution that’s demonstrably superior on access and convenience. And for the growing number of people with high-deductible plans, it’s a no-brainer alternative to the ER, where a visit can cost 5 to 20 times more. It’s not beating primary care at its own game; it’s changing the game entirely.
Tech, The Secret Sauce
So why is this happening now? Urgent care clinics have been around for decades. The difference, as Giamalva points out, is technology. AI and health IT are transforming the experience from a simple convenience to a legit alternative. Think about it: ambient AI scribes let doctors actually look at patients instead of a keyboard. Real-time scheduling lets you secure a spot in line before you leave your house. And systems like Experity’s “Care Agent” deliver follow-up info via simple text links—no clunky patient portal logins required. Basically, tech is removing the friction that makes traditional healthcare so frustrating. It’s letting clinics operate efficiently enough to make the model work at scale.
A New Care Continuum
What’s emerging is a new vision for the healthcare continuum. Giamalva sees a future where urgent care handles lower-complexity, acute needs—think strep throat, minor sprains, sinus infections. That frees up traditional primary care offices to focus on what they do best: managing high-complexity patients who need care coordination between multiple specialists. It’s a logical division of labor. And it’s already happening, with big Integrated Health Networks adding urgent care as capacity relief, not as competition. This isn’t about replacement; it’s about creating a smarter system. The question is, can primary care adapt to this more specialized role?
Lessons Beyond The Exam Room
The urgent care story has insights for any industry. First, obsessing over being the cheapest can make you blind. Customers will pay a premium for a superior experience on the metrics they value—in this case, speed and access. Second, demographic shifts are powerful. Gen Z isn’t “abandoning” primary care; they’re simply not establishing it in the first place, consuming healthcare like they do everything else: on-demand. And third, technology can turn a “good enough” product into a superior one. The right tools let urgent care compete on quality while keeping its speed advantage. The future isn’t always about making the old model cheaper. Sometimes, it’s about building a new one that actually fits how people live now.
