2011 A Big Year For Urgent Care Centers

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - 2011 was a banner year for opening urgent care centers, which exist in a middle ground between emergency rooms and doctor's offices.

"If you have something that could be life or limb-threatening, you absolutely belong in the emergency room and every urgent care center would rather you err on the side of caution," explains Lou Ellen Horowitz, Executive Director of Urgent Care Association of America. "But for the vast majority, everything else that's not life or limb-threatening, you can certainly go to an urgent care center."

The number of centers, which is about 9,000, had been growing at about 3 percent a year.

"In a way it was slowing down a bit, on a percentage basis, but 2011 was a huge year for growth.  There were at least 600 new centers so that rate effectively doubled in 2011. We've seen a lot of expansion," Horowitz said.

She expects even more as health reform rolls outs because millions of people, previously uninsured and probably without a regular doctor, will need non-ER care.