Free Urgent Care Facility Marketing

Free Urgent Care Facility Marketing Plan

Given the severity and prolonged nature of the economic downturn, the need has emerged for urgent care facilities that can address the diverse needs of patients from low-income and poverty level regions. The need is particularly acute for children of poverty level and low-income families where the costs of healthcare during the early years of life are particularly high (Yoo, Slack, Holl, 2009). The need for a free urgent care facility that not only meets children's needs but also the healthcare needs of each patient age group is essential. The intent of this analysis is to provide an assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of building a free urgent care facility, in addition to defining a marketing plan and possible fundraising activities to create this facility and serve poverty-level and low income families. Also provided are potential fund raising activities for underwriting the building and operation of the free urgent care facility.

SWOT Analysis

The following are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of creating an urgent care facility:

Strengths

A Free urgent care facility can significantly reduce the long-term costs associated with treating illness that if left untreated can turn into a long-term health risk for an entire community (Yoo, Slack, Holl, 2009). Creating and operating a free urgent care facility can alleviate the long-term risks of poor health in the most impoverished areas of the country and also globally, thereby saving the costs associated with long-term care of more serious illnesses. Examples of these include influenza, HIV / AIDS and other communicable diseases that when spread can further drive a community into economically challenging conditions.

A free urgent care facility can also alleviate infant mortality. The correlation of infant mortality to poverty levels is just too strong to ignore (Anthopolos, Becker, 2010) and gaining contributions to create a free urgent care facility is critical to alleviate this threat to human life just starting out. By having a clinic where free healthcare can be provided, more infants can be saved from diseases and conditions that threaten their lives in the first 24 -- 36 months. This is the greatest Return on Investment (ROI) of all.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses of creating a free urgent care facility include the continually escalating costs of healthcare supplies and medications and the lack of predictability to them, the need for medical personnel willing to donate their time, and the costs associated with supporting the clinic itself from an ongoing operations standpoint. An additional weakness is the lack of medical insurance, yet a free urgency care facility can use a disclaimer or series of agreements with patients to alleviate this liability. All of these weaknesses with the exception of insurance and staffing are addressable via a consistent fundraising program.

Opportunities

There is an abundance of opportunity for a free urgent care facility to deliver value to those poverty level and low-income regions of the country.

Starting with the opportunity to increase healthcare education of poverty level and low income patients to minimize the risk of HIV / AIDS, the reduction in long-term government-based healthcare would make this outreach program alone worth the investment of government funding. Using the urgent care facility as a platform for outreach to teenagers, young adults and adults about communicable diseases could drastically reduce the lifetime costs of treating low-income and poverty level adults with HIV / AIDS.

A free urgent care facility is best used however by focusing on eradicating infant mortality in the region it operates in. This goal will in turn make healthcare over a lifetime of the generation treated much more effective and affordable. Stemming child mortality also alleviates stress and costs on parents and further can act as a catalyst of economic sustainability (Anthopolos, Becker, 2010). Eradicating child mortality from a given region can have a strong effect on many seemingly unrelated factors including stability of income levels, reduction of treatment costs for middle school, teenage and young adults, and the ability to stabilize workforces in a region as parents can get back to their jobs. The combination of these effects can also contribute to greater economic growth in a region over time. The greatest opportunity of all is to transform these low income and poverty level regions with better medical care so they can pursue better paying jobs due to their family's health being stabilized. While urgent care facilities treat all age ranges, concentrating on infant and young adults will have an inordinately higher rate of impact across entire communities than not focusing on a given age group at all.

Threats

There is unfortunately always the threat of litigation and lawsuits. This is an unfortunate, unpleasant fact, especially in the state of California. This has led to many free urgent care facilities being closed or even sued despite their nonprofit status (Bindman, Grumbach, Bernheim, Vranizan, Cousineau, 2000). The threat of lack of partial government funding as many states and regions of the world face cutbacks makes donations critical to the success of free healthcare providers (Fitzgerald, 2010).

Marketing Plan

In devising the marketing plan for the proposed free urgent care facility, the following key functional areas are defined. First, the focus will be on giving donors complete accountability and visibility into how their dollars are being spent. There will be a "open book" financial statement policy and a board of trustees that will be comprised of donors as well. This will ensure the level of ownership on the part of donors (Lewis, 2007).