Introduction: Urgent care medicine has rapidly grown into a distinct component of the healthcare system, providing immediate treatment for acute illnesses and injuries that are pressing but not life-threatening. (urgentcareassociation.org) Urgent care centers fill the gap between primary care and the emergency department (ED) by offering walk-in care for issues that are too urgent to wait for a regular doctor’s appointment but do not warrant the extensive resources (or expense) of an ED visit. (urgentcareassociation.org) The rise of urgent care has been driven by patient demand for convenience and efficiency – centers are typically open after normal office hours, on weekends, and on holidays, allowing people to receive timely care on their own schedule without long waits or appointments. (urgentcareassociation.org.) Today, urgent care is recognized as an integral part of the healthcare continuum rather than a mere stopgap. In fact, urgent care centers handle over 200 million patient visits per year in the U.S., with more than one-quarter of American adults visiting an urgent care in the last year. (urgentcareassociation.org) This ubiquity means medical malpractice attorneys are increasingly encountering cases arising from urgent care settings. However, urgent care’s unique position – occupying a middle ground between primary care and the ED – presents special considerations in terms of scope of practice, standard of care, and patient expectations that can profoundly affect liability in litigation.

When malpractice claims involve urgent care treatment, urgent care medicine medical experts play a pivotal role in untangling these issues. These experts are clinicians experienced in urgent care (often physicians in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, or emergency medicine who work in urgent care) who serve as expert witnesses to explain what the standard of care is for an urgent care provider under the circumstances of a case. For both plaintiffs and defendants, urgent care experts are invaluable in clarifying how urgent care differs from other settings and whether the care delivered met the correct standard. This article provides a comprehensive overview of urgent care medicine tailored for a legal audience – defining what urgent care medicine is, describing the training and daily operations of urgent care physicians, distinguishing urgent care from emergency departments and primary care practices, and exploring how urgent care medical experts inform litigation. Throughout, we will emphasize how urgent care experts help establish the standard of care in malpractice cases using examples of claims to illustrate key points. Armed with this understanding, malpractice attorneys can better evaluate urgent care cases and effectively use expert testimony to support their arguments.

Defining Urgent Care Medicine and Its Role in Healthcare

In clinical terms, urgent care medicine is the practice of providing immediate outpatient care for acute illness or injury that requires prompt attention but is not severe enough to be life-threatening. (abpsus.org) Urgent care centers are freestanding medical clinics (or sometimes hospital-affiliated facilities) designed for walk-in patients who need same-day care. They offer assessment and treatment for medical issues that cannot wait for a scheduled doctor’s visit yet do not require the advanced capabilities of an emergency department (ED). (urgentcareassociation.org) In other words, an urgent care clinic is the place to go for problems that need timely medical care (within 24 hours) but would not likely result in serious disability or death if not treated immediately. (aaucm.org) Examples include conditions like sprains, minor fractures, moderate asthma flares, cuts requiring stitches, fever or flu symptoms, ear infections, rashes, mild dehydration, and other common illnesses and injuries. Urgent care centers are typically equipped with basic on-site diagnostics (such as X-ray imaging and simple rapid lab tests) to handle these issues efficiently.

The function of urgent care within the broader healthcare system is to improve access and relieve strain on overburdened ED. By managing non-emergency cases, urgent care clinics free up EDs to focus on true emergencies like trauma, heart attacks, and strokes. Studies show that only a small fraction of patients seen in urgent care (around 3%) end up needing referral to an emergency room, indicating that urgent care can definitively treat the vast majority of cases that present there. (abpsus.org) Urgent care medicine has thus become a convenient alternative to the ED for many situations. Patients benefit from significantly shorter wait times (92% of urgent care centers report wait times under 30 minutes) and lower costs than a typical hospital ED visit. (abpsus.org) Urgent care clinics also extend the availability of medical care beyond normal office hours – most are open evenings, weekends, and holidays, when primary care offices are closed. (urgentcareassociation.org) This accessibility is a major selling point in modern healthcare. Rather than waiting days for an appointment or spending all night in an ED waiting room, a patient with, say, a suspected ear infection or a deep cut can walk into urgent care and be evaluated and treated in a single short visit.

It is critical to appreciate the differences between urgent care medicine and primary care medicine. Urgent care is not intended to replace the primary care physician relationship. Urgent care clinics do not provide ongoing management of chronic conditions, preventive health maintenance, or long-term follow up. As succinctly stated by one medical academy, “Urgent care does not replace your primary care physician” – instead, it is a convenient option when one’s regular doctor is unavailable or when illness strikes outside office hours. (aaucm.org) Ideally, patients should resume care with (or be referred back to) their primary provider after an urgent care visit if further evaluation or follow up is needed. Urgent care clinicians often advise patients to schedule follow up with their PCP and may forward records of the urgent care visit to the PCP to ensure continuity. The urgent care model thus works in tandem with primary care: providing episodic acute care on demand, then handing patients back to their long-term caregivers. Primary care physicians build a longitudinal knowledge of a patient’s history, conditions, and risk factors over time – something urgent care cannot do in a one-off visit. (scripps.org) Accordingly, urgent care providers focus on the acute issue at hand, while reminding patients to seek routine or specialty care for any broader health needs.

Urgent care now fills a specialized role in the healthcare system. It first emerged in the 1970s as a niche concept but has since exploded in growth. By 2020, there were over 10,000 urgent care centers operating across the United States, providing walk-in medical services in virtually every community. (saponaroinc.com) The Urgent Care Association (UCA) – the industry’s trade group – emphasizes that modern urgent care is “an integral, specialized segment of the healthcare continuum,” rather than a temporary stopgap. (urgentcareassociation.org) In fact, UCA statistics show urgent care clinics handle hundreds of millions of visits annually, underscoring that urgent care is here to stay as a vital part of healthcare delivery. (urgentcareassociation.org) Urgent care centers usually fall into a few organizational categories: some are part of hospital systems (often branded as hospital-affiliated urgent care), others are physician-owned private clinics or groups, and many are corporate chains or franchises dedicated solely to urgent care. (ag.ny.gov) Regardless of ownership model, all urgent care centers share the common goal of providing prompt, cost-effective care for acute issues on an unscheduled, walk-in basis. They accept most insurance and also cater to self-pay patients, generally charging a flat fee for an episode of care that is far less than an ED bill. (ag.ny.gov ag.ny.gov) In summary, urgent care medicine occupies a unique niche: it complements primary care by handling unexpected illnesses/injuries and reduces ED overload by managing minor emergencies – all while prioritizing quick service and patient convenience.

Training and Clinical Responsibilities of Urgent Care Physicians

Physician Training and Qualifications: Unlike well-established specialties such as internal medicine or emergency medicine, urgent care medicine has only recently sought formal recognition as its own specialty. The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) – the main physician certifying body – does not yet offer a board certification in urgent care. Nevertheless, many urgent care physicians are board certified in related fields (most commonly family medicine or emergency medicine) and leverage that training in the urgent care setting. In fact, nearly half of all urgent care physicians come from a family medicine background, and roughly 30% are trained in emergency medicine, with smaller numbers coming from internal medicine or pediatrics. (scripps.org) Family medicine physicians are a natural fit because urgent care requires a broad knowledge of treating adults and children for common ailments (much like family medicine). (scripps.org) Emergency physicians also gravitate to urgent care, given their expertise in acute care and triage. Some physicians enter urgent care straight out of residency in those fields, while others join after years of practicing in ED or primary care settings. In any case, urgent care doctors must be adept at front-line medicine – quickly evaluating a wide variety of complaints and making safe management decisions, often with limited information.

Recognizing the unique skill set involved in urgent care, an alternative certifying body (the American Board of Physician Specialties (ABPS)) created a specific board certification for Urgent Care Medicine. The ABPS’s Board of Certification in Urgent Care Medicine (BCUCM) was established to credential experienced urgent care physicians and formally validate their expertise. (abpsus.org) Eligibility criteria for BCUCM required physicians to first complete a residency in a primary specialty (such as family or emergency medicine) and accumulate substantial full-time experience in urgent care practice. (abpsus.org abpsus.org) Although the BCUCM program is relatively young (and as of 2023, no longer accepting new applicants), its existence reflects that urgent care medicine has matured into a distinct discipline with an identifiable knowledge base and scope of practice. Whether or not they carry a dedicated urgent care certification, virtually all urgent care physicians are graduates of accredited medical schools and residency programs, licensed to practice medicine, and have training oriented toward acute outpatient care. Some maintain dual board certifications (for example, a doctor might be ABMS-boarded in Family Medicine but also hold the ABPS Urgent Care Medicine certification). For malpractice purposes, the physician’s field of practice typically defines the standard of care – so a doctor working in an urgent care capacity will be held to the standards of a reasonably prudent urgent care provider, regardless of whether they are formally “urgent care certified” or come from an Emergency Medicine or Family Medicine background.

In addition to physicians, urgent care centers commonly employ advanced practice providers such as physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs). These providers often handle a significant portion of patient visits, especially in high-volume clinics, under the supervision of a physician. Most states require some level of physician oversight for PAs/NPs, though the physician might not always be physically on-site. (Notably, most urgent care centers do have a physician on site during all operating hours, but some may rely on telephonic supervision for mid-level providers at certain times. (ag.ny.gov) The varying mix of provider qualifications is an important factor in urgent care malpractice cases – if a patient was seen only by a PA or NP, the adequacy of physician supervision can become a point of contention. Regardless, all urgent care clinicians are expected to work within their training and the clinic’s protocols, with the physician medical director ultimately responsible for care standards.

Daily Clinical Operations and Responsibilities: A day in the life of an urgent care physician is fast paced and varied. Urgent care clinics operate on a walk-in basis with no scheduled appointments, so providers must be prepared to manage whatever comes through the door. On a typical shift, an urgent care doctor might treat infants with ear infections, school-age children with minor injuries, adults with flu symptoms or suspected fractures, and seniors with bronchitis or pneumonia – all in the span of a few hours. This requires rapid but thorough medical evaluation. Physicians take focused histories, perform physical exams, and often must make prompt decisions about diagnostics and treatment. The toolkit at an urgent care center usually includes basics such as on-site X-ray imaging, electrocardiogram (EKG) machines, and a limited spectrum of lab tests (for example: urinalysis, pregnancy tests, rapid strep or flu tests, blood glucose, and sometimes point-of-care blood tests). Urgent care doctors are responsible for interpreting these tests, as radiologists or specialists may not be immediately available. For instance, an urgent care physician will read the patient’s X-ray for fractures or pneumonia; they must be comfortable identifying common findings and deciding on treatment or need for follow up.

Procedurally, urgent care physicians perform minor medical procedures that fall within the scope of an outpatient clinic. These can include wound care (cleaning, suturing lacerations, draining abscesses), splinting or casting of uncomplicated fractures, removing foreign bodies (from skin, eyes, or ears), and administering medications like nebulizer breathing treatments, allergy injections, or IV fluids for mild dehydration. They also handle orthopedic injuries (sprains, minor dislocations), dermatologic issues (rashes, minor burns), and perform interventions such as stitching cuts or providing tetanus shots. Urgent care providers must maintain proficiency in these hands-on skills, since there is often no specialist on hand – they are expected to initially manage the condition. If a wound is complex or a fracture unstable, the urgent care physician’s duty is to stabilize the patient and then arrange prompt referral to a hospital or specialist.

A critical part of the urgent care physician’s role is triage and risk assessment. At times patients will present to urgent care with symptoms that, upon evaluation, turn out to signal a more serious condition requiring hospital-level care. In such cases, the urgent care provider must not only recognize the red flags but also act decisively – whether that means calling 911 for ambulance transport or directing the patient to go immediately to the ED. In fact, one of the highest duties of urgent care clinicians is to identify when a seemingly moderate complaint masks a serious emergency that is beyond the clinic’s scope, and to facilitate a timely transfer to the ED. (elitemedicalexperts.com) Common scenarios include chest pain that could be a heart attack, symptoms of stroke, severe abdominal pain suggesting surgical emergencies, or signs of sepsis (body-wide infection). Urgent care centers do not have the capability to provide definitive care for true emergencies – no trauma surgeons, no operating rooms, no inpatient beds – so patient safety depends on the urgent care team’s ability to promptly reroute such cases to a hospital. Urgent care physicians, therefore, carry the constant responsibility to rule out emergencies within a limited-resource setting. They are trained to err on the side of caution: if in doubt, send the patient to the ED rather than risking a missed critical diagnosis. As one expert witness organization describes it, urgent care providers must maintain “a high degree of constant vigilance for patients who inappropriately present to the Urgent Care” with conditions like heart attacks or strokes – any delay in getting these patients to definitive care can result in harm. (elitemedicalexperts.com)

Finally, after treating an urgent care patient, the physician’s duties include documentation and discharge planning. They must carefully document the encounter, including the patient’s history, exam findings, test results, treatments given, and the rationale for decisions. Good documentation is vital not only for patient care continuity but also, as discussed later, for medicolegal defense if outcomes go poorly. The physician or staff will provide the patient with discharge instructions – for example, how to care for a wound, or a prescription for medications – and crucially, provide advice on what follow up is needed. Often this means instructing the patient to see their primary care doctor or a specialist in the next few days, or to return if symptoms worsen. Because urgent care does not do routine follow-up visits, ensuring the patient understands when and how to get further care is essential. In some cases, the urgent care staff will proactively arrange a referral (e.g. schedule an orthopedic appointment for a fracture). A lack of proper follow-up instruction can jeopardize patient outcomes and also figure prominently in malpractice allegations (e.g., if a patient does not know to seek further care and then suffers complications). Thus, the urgent care physician’s responsibilities extend through the end of the visit: making sure the patient’s acute issue is addressed as much as possible, and that a plan is in place for any additional care needed.

Urgent Care vs. Emergency Medicine: Differences in Scope, Liability, and Patient Expectations

Urgent care medicine versus emergency medicine: Urgent care medicine and emergency medicine share certain overlaps – both deal with acute problems, the full range of patients by age and gender (i.e., not just children as a pediatrician would see, only women as an OB/GYN would see, or adults as an internist would see), and unscheduled patients – but they differ profoundly in scope of practice and available resources. Understanding these differences is key for evaluating liability, as the standard of care in an urgent care clinic will not be identical to that in a hospital ED.

Scope and Capabilities: Urgent care centers focus on acute medical problems at the lower end of the severity spectrum, whereas EDs handle the full range of emergencies, including life-threatening conditions. (aaucm.org aaucm.org) Again, urgent care treats minor fractures, small lacerations, mild to moderate infections, and the like, but is not equipped for major trauma, heart attacks, strokes, or other critical conditions requiring advanced intervention. Emergency departments, often part of hospitals, have extensive diagnostic and treatment capabilities on site – including CT scans, MRIs, ultrasound, comprehensive lab testing, cardiac monitoring, operating rooms, and specialists on call. Urgent cares do not. As noted earlier, urgent care relies on simple office-based labs and X-rays; if a patient likely needs a CT scan, IV catheterization for complex treatment, or any advanced imaging or specialist care, the urgent care medicine standard of care is to transfer that patient to the ED. (aaucm.org) In fact, urgent care medicine providers make such transfers routinely: any case beyond their scope must be escalated without delay. (elitemedicalexperts.com) By contrast, an ED can initiate those higher-level interventions immediately on site.

Another difference is the time frame and setting. Emergency departments are open 24/7 and can observe patients for extended periods or admit them to the hospital. Urgent care clinics operate on a walk-in outpatient basis and typically have set hours (e.g. 8am–8pm); they do not hold patients for prolonged observation or overnight. If an urgent care patient needs monitoring beyond the visit (say, serial exams or treatment over many hours), that patient generally must be sent to the hospital. This means urgent care providers make diagnostic and management decisions with a shorter interaction – they must decide within a brief visit whether a patient seems safe to treat and release or whether uncertainty warrants hospital evaluation. In an ED, doctors have the option to keep a patient for a while, perform extensive tests, and consult specialists before disposition; urgent care does not afford such luxury. The legal implication is that what’s expected of an urgent care clinician is tempered by the limitations of the setting. For example, missing a very rare diagnosis without advanced testing might be viewed more leniently in urgent care (if all reasonable urgent care steps were taken) than it would in an ED that had the tools to find it. Conversely, failing to transfer a clearly unstable patient is a serious breach in urgent care, because the standard there is to call 911 when emergency care is needed.

It’s also worth noting differences in staffing and training: Emergency departments are staffed by physicians (often board-certified in Emergency Medicine) and a large support team (nurses, paramedics, respiratory therapists, etc.), whereas urgent care centers have smaller teams and may be staffed by generalist physicians or mid-level providers. An urgent care doctor might be the sole physician on site, working with a couple of medical assistants and a radiology tech. An ED, on the other hand, might have multiple physicians, residents, and full teams for trauma or critical care. This disparity can affect both patient expectations and liability. Patients generally understand that an ED is meant for the gravest emergencies and has comprehensive capabilities, while urgent care is for milder problems. However, patients do sometimes misjudge and go to urgent care with what really is a true emergency. As detailed above, urgent care staff are expected to recognize the emergency and act – but they are not expected to perform miracles without equipment. Legally, an urgent care clinic will be judged on whether it did the correct thing (e.g., initial stabilizing measures and prompt transfer) – not whether it definitively treated the emergency (since definitive treatment belongs in the ED).

Patient Expectations: The typical patient going to urgent care expects a quicker, more convenient experience than the ED, and for moderate problems to be handled on the spot. They do not expect (and likely do not receive) the exhaustive testing that an ED might do. In a malpractice context, this can cut both ways. Some plaintiffs will argue that the urgent care should have done more (ordered a particular test or immediately sent them to the hospital) if a serious condition was missed. The defense would counter that standard of care did not require hospital-level diagnostics. Managing patient expectations is also part of the urgent care provider’s job: they should educate patients when something is beyond the clinic’s scope. For instance, if a patient with chest pain comes in, a prudent urgent care doctor will explain the need for emergency evaluation and facilitate transfer, rather than simply turning them away. Failure to properly counsel or redirect a patient in such scenarios can be a liability issue. As one law firm noted, a layperson cannot always know that their condition is too serious for urgent care – the onus is on the urgent care professionals to recognize an emergency and advise the patient correctly. (malpracticeohio.com malpracticeohio.com) If they fail to do so and the patient suffers harm, the urgent care clinic can be held accountable.

Regulatory and Legal Distinctions: Emergency departments in the U.S. are bound by EMTALA (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) which requires them to provide a medical screening and stabilizing treatment to all patients regardless of ability to pay. Urgent care centers are not subject to EMTALA’s requirements. (elitemedicalexperts.com) Urgent cares can ask for insurance or payment and may turn away patients (though in practice many will still give some initial aid or call EMS if someone walks in in crisis). This difference means urgent care has no legal obligation to treat everyone, but if they do undertake care, they must meet the standard of care for whatever they provide. Another legal difference is that some states have special malpractice protections for emergency care settings. Some state laws imposes a higher threshold of proof (requiring willful and wanton negligence, effectively gross negligence) for malpractice claims arising from ED treatment. (vanweylaw.com) These heightened standards were designed to protect ED providers given the high-pressure, life-and-death decisions they must make. Such heightened provisions generally do not extend to urgent care cases, since urgent care is an outpatient elective setting. Consequently, an urgent care malpractice plaintiff usually only needs to prove ordinary negligence (a deviation from standard care by a preponderance of evidence), not gross negligence. This lack of elevated legal protection means urgent care clinics and clinicians can be more straightforwardly sued under normal malpractice standards, similar to any doctor’s office setting.

In summary, urgent care differs from emergency medicine in scope (limited acuity and resources versus full-spectrum critical care), in expectations (urgent care provides quick treatment for minor ailments; ER handles true emergencies), and in certain legal obligations (no EMTALA duty; no special immunity for urgent care). Liability in urgent care cases often centers on whether the provider should have “up-triaged” the patient to the ED. Many urgent care malpractice claims involve allegations that the clinic failed to recognize a serious condition and delay in transfer led to harm. (malpracticeohio.com malpracticeohio.com) By contrast, emergency department claims tend to involve how the ED managed a critical situation. Appreciating these differences allows attorneys to frame the standard of care appropriately – judging urgent care actions in the context of an urgent care setting, not retroactively holding them to an ED-level of care that was not available.

Urgent Care vs. Primary Care (and Other Outpatient Practice)

Urgent care medicine also needs to be distinguished from primary care and other routine outpatient services. In many ways, urgent care is a hybrid of primary care’s broad scope with emergency medicine’s focus on acuteness. However, the key differences of continuity, depth of relationship, and scope of services impact malpractice considerations.

Continuity of Care: The hallmark of primary care (whether family medicine, internal medicine, or pediatrics) is an ongoing doctor-patient relationship. Primary care physicians (PCPs) see patients for regular check-ups, chronic disease management, and follow ups, building a comprehensive understanding of each patient’s medical history, risk factors, and baseline health over time. (scripps.org) By contrast, urgent care operates on an episodic model with no continuity by default. An urgent care provider typically has no prior relationship with the patient and may never see them again after the visit. They must work with whatever history the patient can provide (or limited records if available) and address the immediate problem. They do not oversee the patient’s long-term care. This lack of continuity means urgent care clinicians might not catch subtler, long-developing issues that a PCP monitoring the patient over months or years could recognize. For example, a primary care doctor might notice a pattern of recurring symptoms or an abnormal lab trending over time and pursue a diagnosis, whereas an urgent care doctor seeing the patient only once might treat the acute symptom and advise a follow-up without investigating underlying causes. In primary care, liability frequently derives from failure to follow up; in urgent care, the parallel issue is failure to ensure the patient gets appropriate follow up outside the clinic. Urgent care providers are expected to counsel patients on next steps (e.g., “see your PCP in two days” or “return if worse”), but they generally do not themselves follow up with the patient. If a critical result comes back after the patient has left (say, a radiologist later finds a pneumonia on an X-ray), the urgent care must have a system to notify the patient or their PCP. Breakdowns in communication can lead to malpractice allegations. Indeed, one analysis noted that urgent care malpractice cases often involve “failure to report patients’ conditions to a primary care provider [or] provide for follow-up care,” which are consequences of the gap in continuity. (jucm.com)

Scope of Services: Primary care is comprehensive in scope (covering everything from preventive exams and immunizations to managing hypertension or diabetes), but it generally deals with problems of low acuity in scheduled appointments. Urgent care, by design, handles a narrower time-sensitive scope: it is concerned only with acute complaints, typically that arise suddenly. Urgent care physicians usually do not manage chronic illnesses long term, do not perform major procedures, and do not provide services like obstetrical care that some family physicians do. (aaucm.org aaucm.org) For example, a family medicine doctor might see a patient regularly for diabetes and also treat them for acute bronchitis; an urgent care doctor would treat the bronchitis but would refer the patient back to primary care for diabetes management or any chronic needs. Urgent care also typically does not provide preventive care (like routine physicals or screenings) except for certain required exams (sports physicals, employment physicals) as a convenience. There is some overlap – urgent care clinics often offer vaccines, basic screenings, or sports physicals for convenience. (elitemedicalexperts.com) – but the core mission is acute care. This delineation can be relevant in malpractice: if a patient with no regular doctor keeps using urgent care for chronic issues, things can slip through the cracks. Legally, urgent care clinicians are held to the standard of episodic acute care, not long-term management, but there could be debate if an urgent care repeatedly saw a patient for an issue that really required primary care follow-up (e.g., high blood pressure readings noted several times without advising the patient to get primary care evaluation). Generally, urgent care should refer such cases to primary care; failure to do so might be alleged as not meeting the standard of care if harm resulted.

Patient Expectations: Patients see their primary care doctor for personalized, comprehensive care and expect that doctor to keep track of their health over time. In urgent care, patients expect a quick fix for the problem of the moment. They do not anticipate the urgent care to remember them or manage anything beyond the current issue. Because of this, the standard of “thoroughness” may differ. A primary care physician, knowing the patient’s background, might be expected to pursue a more exhaustive diagnostic workup for a complaint, whereas an urgent care clinician might reasonably address the most likely cause and instruct the patient to see their PCP if it doesn’t improve. For example, consider an early symptom of cancer (like a subtle lump): a primary care doctor who has an ongoing duty might be expected on follow-up visits to ensure that lump is evaluated if it persists. An urgent care doctor who sees the patient once for a lump might simply advise, “It’s probably benign, but have your regular doctor check this if it doesn’t go away,” which could be appropriate for that context. If the patient fails to follow up and it turns out to be cancer, liability might hinge on whether the urgent care clinician’s advice was adequate versus a PCP’s obligations. Expert witnesses can help delineate these expectations: what a reasonable PCP would do over several months versus what a reasonable urgent care provider should do in a single visit.

Coordination with Primary Care: Ideally, urgent care and primary care communicate. Many urgent care centers ask patients for their primary physician’s name and will send a visit summary to that doctor. This helps close the loop so that the PCP knows their patient had an urgent care visit and why. Unfortunately, such communication does not always happen (especially if the patient does not have a PCP or does not provide information). Lack of coordination can lead to duplicate or conflicting treatments and is also a fertile ground for legal claims if something goes wrong. For instance, if an urgent care prescribes a medication that interacts badly with something a patient’s PCP prescribed (and neither knows what the other did), both providers could be entangled in litigation. From a malpractice attorney’s perspective, it’s important to examine whether an urgent care clinic followed its own protocols for communicating critical information to either the patient or their primary doctor. Documentation of advice given (e.g., “Patient advised to follow up with Dr. Smith within 2 days”) is often a key piece of evidence in these cases.

Retail Clinics and Other Outpatient Care: As a brief aside, urgent care is also distinct from the retail “minute clinics” found in pharmacies or big-box stores, and from telemedicine services. Retail clinics, usually staffed by NPs, treat an even narrower range of minor illnesses (like simple sore throats or bladder infections) and have very limited onsite equipment. (aaucm.orgaaucm.org) They are meant for very basic care and almost always refer anything remotely serious to a physician or urgent care/ED. Notably, retail clinics historically have seen extremely low malpractice claim rates – one review in 2014 found essentially no recorded malpractice suits against retail clinics (jucm.com), likely because their scope is so limited and they will promptly refer out anything beyond a minor ailment. Urgent care centers, with broader capabilities, correspondingly take on more risk than retail clinics. Compared to specialist outpatient clinics (like a cardiology office), urgent care’s breadth is wider but depth in any one field is shallower. Specialists are held to a higher standard within their specialty; urgent care is held to a generalist standard of acute care. Attorneys should be careful to compare apples to apples – the question in an urgent care case is what a competent urgent care (or family medicine/emergency medicine) practitioner would have done, not what a top subspecialist would do with hindsight.

In sum, urgent care differs from routine primary care in its lack of continuity and narrower focus on immediacy. This affects liability by concentrating risk in the acute diagnostic arena and the handoff process (urgent care to patient or urgent care to PCP). Common urgent care pitfalls – as will be detailed below – involve things like not arranging proper follow-up or missing a diagnosis that a continuous care process might have eventually caught. Urgent care providers are expected to act as diligent “acute problem-solvers,” but not to manage a patient’s health holistically beyond that encounter. Urgent care medical experts can clarify these boundaries in court, ensuring that an urgent care clinic is judged according to its role and not unfairly held to standards that belong to long-term care settings.

Common Malpractice Risks in Urgent Care Settings

Even though urgent care treats comparatively minor conditions, it is not immune to medical errors or malpractice claims. In fact, as urgent care utilization has increased, so have lawsuits alleging negligence in that setting. (saponaroinc.com) An analysis by risk experts noted that outpatient errors (including those in urgent care) are as common as, if not more prevalent than, errors in hospitals. (saponaroinc.com) The majority of claims against urgent care centers tend to involve diagnosis issues – either getting the diagnosis wrong or failing to diagnose a serious condition in time. (saponaroinc.com) This mirrors trends in primary care, where diagnostic errors are the leading cause of malpractice suits, comprising an estimated 20–40% of outpatient claims. (jucm.com malpracticeohio.com) However, urgent care has some unique liability challenges stemming from its hybrid nature and rapid-fire practice style. Below are several common malpractice risk areas for urgent care, especially relevant to litigation:

● Missed or Delayed Diagnosis: By far the most frequent allegation is that an urgent care provider failed to diagnose a serious medical condition. Examples include mistaking a heart attack or appendicitis for a benign illness, or missing signs of pneumonia on an X-ray. (jucm.com saponaroinc.com) Urgent care malpractice data (anecdotally compiled) show commonly missed diagnoses have included things like pneumonia, congestive heart failure, kidney failure, cancer, pulmonary embolism, and other conditions that can initially present with mild symptoms. (jucm.com) The fast-paced urgent care environment and limited diagnostic tools contribute to this risk. A related issue is misdiagnosis – diagnosing the patient with the wrong condition (e.g., treating a cardiac chest pain as acid reflux). These cases often hinge on whether the provider should have recognized red flags and either ordered additional testing or sent the patient to an ED.

● Failure to Recognize Emergencies/Transfer in a Timely Manner: Many lawsuits assert that the urgent care clinic did not act quickly enough when a patient’s condition was actually an emergency. If a patient later suffers harm (like a stroke, heart attack, or sepsis) and it is shown that the urgent care visit was a missed opportunity to get them emergent care, liability is a strong possibility. Common themes are “failure to recognize that the patient’s condition was an emergency” and “failure to transfer the patient to a hospital promptly.” (malpracticeohio.com malpracticeohio.com) In essence, the claim is that any reasonable urgent care provider would have identified how serious the situation was and called 911 or otherwise expedited hospital care. Cases have involved, for example, an urgent care diagnosing ‘acid reflux’ in a patient with chest pain who later had a heart attack – the argument being the clinic should have realized it might be cardiac and sent him to the ED. (saponaroinc.com saponaroinc.com) In urgent care, delay equals danger if an actual emergency is in progress, so this is a critical standard of care issue.

● Treatment and Medication Errors: Urgent care clinicians sometimes make mistakes in treating the condition even when they diagnose it correctly. This category includes things like prescribing the wrong medication or dose, failing to provide a needed treatment, or procedural mistakes. For instance, a patient might be correctly diagnosed with an infection but the provider might prescribe a medication to which the patient’s records clearly indicate an allergy – a prescription error that can lead to an adverse reaction. (paulsonandnace.com wkw.com) Another example: failing to properly irrigate and clean a wound that then becomes infected, or not splinting a fracture adequately, causing further injury – essentially treatment failures. While these errors are not unique to urgent care, the high throughput of patients and sometimes heavy reliance on protocols can contribute. Urgent care often uses standardized order sets for common illnesses; if used inappropriately, the wrong treatment might be given. Malpractice suits in this realm argue that the care provided fell below the accepted standard (e.g., no reasonable urgent care physician would have missed giving a tetanus shot for a dirty wound).

● Lack of Communication/Follow-Up: Communication breakdowns are a frequent source of error in outpatient care, and urgent care is no exception. In fact, the urgent care model’s discontinuity can exacerbate this. Lawsuits have been brought over “clerical and communication errors,” such as failure to communicate critical test results to the patient or failure to instruct the patient properly on follow up. (saponaroinc.com) An urgent care clinic might send out a lab test (like a throat culture or blood test) that returns positive after the patient has gone home; if there is no system to notify the patient and they suffer harm, that is a clear liability issue. Similarly, not giving clear discharge instructions – for example, neglecting to tell a patient with worsening symptoms to go to an ED – can be seen as a breach of standard of care. Another communication-related claim is when urgent care doesn’t coordinate with the patient’s primary doctor or specialist. As mentioned, not informing the PCP of a concerning finding can lead to no one following up. Documentation lapses (considered a form of communication, on the record) also play a role. Poor or missing documentation of what the urgent care provider checked or advised can hurt the defense, because it creates an appearance that something was neglected even if it wasn’t. Many urgent care malpractice cases highlight that providers failed to document “pertinent negatives” – i.e., they did not record that they did check for certain dangerous signs and found none, leaving them open to allegations that they never considered it. (jucm.com)

● Inadequate Staffing or Supervision: Some urgent care claims point to systemic issues like the clinic being understaffed or the staff being inadequately trained. For example, a lawsuit might allege that a clinic had no physician present and an unsupervised PA made a poor decision, or that support staff failed to triage a critical patient appropriately due to lack of training. The qualifications of personnel are indeed different in urgent care versus ED – urgent care might not always have an ED-seasoned doctor or may rely on less experienced providers. If a bad outcome occurs, plaintiffs may scrutinize whether the clinic had appropriate oversight. Common allegations include “insufficient or non-existent physician oversight of physician assistants (PAs) or nurse practitioners,” “inadequate attention to patient safety,” and “insufficient training of medical personnel” at the urgent care facility. (malpracticeohio.com) In one cited list of urgent care claim themes, issues like inadequate staffing levels and even infrequent inspections or lack of accreditation were noted as contributing factors (malpracticeohio.com malpracticeohio.com) While these systemic issues might not be the direct cause of a patient’s injury, they set the stage for errors and can demonstrate negligence on the part of the clinic (for example, a clinic that chose to operate without any physician on duty might be seen as breaching the standard of care if a complex case was handled by someone unqualified).

● Equipment and Resource Limitations: Urgent care centers, by their nature, have limitations in equipment and treatment options, but they are still expected to maintain certain basic capabilities. Malpractice cases have cited instances of “non-functioning or missing diagnostic equipment” or lack of necessary medications/supplies as part of the problem. (malpracticeohio.com) For instance, if an urgent care’s X-ray machine was broken and a patient’s fracture was missed as a result, the plaintiff might argue the clinic was negligent in not having essential equipment available. Or if a patient had an allergic reaction and the clinic had no epinephrine on hand, that would be a major liability issue. Urgent care centers should be prepared for common urgent scenarios (from asthma attacks to lacerations); failing to stock antidotes, critical medications, or to maintain equipment could be deemed a breach of duty to patients. These resource issues tie into corporate negligence – the idea that the clinic’s management did not uphold required standards – and can implicate the urgent care company in addition to the individual provider.

It is evident that many of these risk areas overlap and often more than one will be involved in a given case (e.g., a misdiagnosis compounded by lack of follow-up instructions). The overarching theme is that urgent care malpractice claims frequently boil down to whether — given the acuity of the situation and the limits of the setting — the provider did what was required. Did they sufficiently consider worst-case scenarios? Did they follow through with necessary actions (tests, referrals, treatments) to either rule those out or address them? And did the urgent care clinic have the proper processes in place to support the provider and patient safety? When those questions are answered in the negative and an injury results, a strong malpractice claim can be made.

Urgent Care Medicine in Medical Malpractice Litigation

When an injury or poor outcome is alleged to have resulted from urgent care treatment, the case follows the general framework of any medical malpractice lawsuit: the plaintiff must establish the standard of care applicable to the urgent care provider, show that the provider breached that standard, and prove that this breach caused, to the requisite certitude, the patient’s injury. However, because urgent care is a relatively distinctive practice environment, articulating the proper standard of care often requires nuanced explanation. This is where urgent care medical experts become indispensable in litigation.

An urgent care medical expert is typically a clinician (often a physician, but could be an NP or PA for cases involving care by those providers) who has substantial experience in urgent care medicine and can testify about how a reasonably careful urgent care provider would have managed the situation in question. (elitemedicalexperts.com) In other words, this expert defines what the standard of care was for the urgent care clinic under the circumstances. If the case involves a physician’s actions, the expert will be another physician with urgent care expertise. If a PA’s, NP’s, or nurse’s care is at issue, the expert might be a physician familiar with supervising PAs, NPs, or nurses in urgent care or it might be another PA, NP, or nurse, respectively, with urgent care experience. Whether a physician is allowed to opine about the standard of care of a PA, NP, or nurse varies by state. Regardless, the expert’s role is to educate the judge and jury on the required practices, decision-making processes, and limitations inherent to urgent care, and then to give an opinion on whether the defendant met or violated that standard.

Establishing the Standard of Care: In any malpractice case, standard of care is essentially the benchmark of what a competent practitioner in the same field need to do. For urgent care, this means assessing the case from the perspective of an urgent care provider (not of a subspecialist with unlimited resources, and not a layperson—but, rather, a peer professional in a comparable urgent care clinic). (elitemedicalexperts.com) The expert will draw on clinical guidelines, urgent care industry protocols, and their own experience to define this benchmark. For example, an expert might testify, “Given a patient presenting to urgent care with symptom X, the standard of care would be to perform A and B tests, consider diagnoses D, E, and F, and if findings are suggestive of [red flag], to either do Y or immediately transfer the patient to the ED.” By laying out these expectations, the expert provides the yardstick against which the defendant’s actions will be measured.

Because urgent care lies between emergency and primary care, the standard of care may blend elements of both. A qualified urgent care expert will often explain what was reasonable in the urgent care context. This includes acknowledging the limitations of urgent care (for instance, “It is not expected for an urgent care doctor to obtain a CT scan on site; the standard would be to transfer if a CT is needed” or “urgent care clinicians, lacking extensive labs, appropriately use clinical scoring systems to decide on transfer vs. home care”). At the same time, the expert will emphasize the duties urgent care providers do have (such as thorough examination, appropriate use of the tools they do possess, prudent decision regarding when something exceeds urgent care scope). A particularly critical aspect experts highlight is the duty to not miss emergencies: urgent care standard of care requires a high index of suspicion for emergent conditions and immediate referral when such conditions are suspected. (elitemedicalexperts.com) Thus, in many cases the standard of care debate centers on whether the provider should have suspected a more dangerous condition based on the symptoms and signs. The expert’s testimony will frame what a prudent urgent care provider was required to do with the same information.

Notably, urgent care experts may reference guidelines or policies from authoritative bodies. For instance, the Urgent Care Association or academic literature might have recommendations for managing certain complaints in urgent care. Malpractice attorneys often work with the expert to identify any written standards (like urgent care clinical protocols) that bolster the case. However, urgent care is still developing in terms of formal guidelines, so much rests on the expert’s own knowledge of common practice. Courts have allowed experts from related fields (e.g., an emergency physician) to testify as to urgent care standards if they have relevant experience, but having someone who actively practices in urgent care is usually more convincing. In many or most states, for testimony on standard of care, the experts’ specialties must match those of the defendant.

Expert Witnesses for the Plaintiff: In a malpractice case brought by the patient (plaintiff), the urgent care expert’s job is usually to identify how the urgent care provider deviated from standard of care. That expert may or may not be the same one to testify about how that caused the patient’s injury. The plaintiff’s expert needs to point out deviations (either mal- or nonfeasance) from standard of care. For example, the expert might testify that given the patient’s symptoms, any competent urgent care doctor “should have recognized signs of a possible stroke and immediately called an ambulance. By failing to do so and instead sending the patient home, the provider violated the standard of care.” They might further explain that this breach led to a critical delay in treatment, worsening the outcome. In another case, a plaintiff’s urgent care expert could assert that a provider failed to order an X-ray or failed to properly examine a patient with a wound, resulting in a foreign body (like glass) being left undetected – which they would assert was a deviation from standard of care for wound evaluation in an urgent care setting. (jucm.com) The expert will often use strong language like “deviation from the standard of care,” or “fell below the standard” to characterize the provider’s actions (or inactions). Notably, glass (aside from leaded glass) is not radio-opaque, so it will not show up on X-ray.

To support these opinions, plaintiff experts frequently reference what a reasonable urgent care clinician was required to do/not do or how such action was required to be done. They may use phrases like, “It would be medically unacceptable in an urgent care setting to not perform X in this scenario,” or “The urgent care protocol for complaint Y is to do Z – which was not done here.” They will also educate the jury on why those steps are critical – for instance, an expert in one case noted that when a patient keeps returning with the same unresolved problem, the standard of care is to escalate the workup or refer to a specialist, rather than keep repeating the same treatment. (jucm.com) Such testimony underscores that the urgent care clinic’s repeated failure to take the next step (eventually revealing a cancer after multiple visits) was negligent. (jucm.com) In another illustrative case, an urgent care missed the signs of a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung) on two visits, treating it as pneumonia; a plaintiff expert would testify that any prudent urgent care physician would have included pulmonary embolism in the differential for pleuritic chest pain and either ordered appropriate tests or sent the patient to the ED and that not doing so was a breach that led to the patient’s death. (jucm.com)

Plaintiff experts also often focus on documentation gaps or lack of proper safety nets as evidence of negligence. For example, if the urgent care records show no mention that the provider considered an alternative diagnosis or checked a certain vital sign, the expert can say that failing to do so was below standard (unless the defense can show it was done but not documented). In urgent care cases, something as simple as not rechecking an abnormal vital sign before discharge can be a damning point – one study cited by experts found that 16% of urgent care patients with very abnormal vitals were discharged without reevaluation (jucm.com) A plaintiff expert would seize on that if relevant and say, “This patient had a very high heart rate recorded initially. The standard of care requires addressing and rechecking such an abnormal vital sign before sending the patient home. (jucm.com) There is no evidence the clinic did so, which is a violation of protocol and contributed to the bad outcome.” By highlighting these deviations, the plaintiff’s urgent care medical expert builds the case that the clinic’s negligence, more likely than not, caused the patient’s harm.

Expert Witnesses for the Defense: On the flip side, when defending an urgent care provider or clinic, the expert’s role is to affirm that the care given was within the standard of care – or at least that any breach did not cause the outcome. A defense urgent care expert will comb through the case and often argue one or more of the following: (1) that the urgent care provider did everything that a reasonable provider would have done, even if the outcome was unfortunate; (2) that the provider’s decisions were within a reasonable range of actions (given what was known at the time); and/or (3) that the injury was not due to any act or omission of the provider (causation arguments, e.g., the condition was so advanced that earlier intervention would not have changed it).

For instance, if the allegation is a missed diagnosis, the defense expert might testify that the patient’s presentation was atypical or incomplete, and that the urgent care physician reasonably believed a less serious diagnosis was most likely. They might say, “Given the patient’s exam and vital signs at the urgent care visit, it was reasonable to treat for pneumonia and schedule follow up, as was done. The patient did not exhibit the classic warning signs that would necessitate an immediate hospital referral at that time, so the provider’s actions were consistent with the standard of care.” In the case of the pulmonary embolism (PE) that was missed, a defense expert could point out that the urgent care doctor did do an evaluation (exam and chest X-ray) and treated for pneumonia, which improved the patient’s symptoms initially – suggesting the course of action was not unreasonable. (jucm.com) The expert might add that pulmonary embolism is notoriously difficult to diagnose and that even in EDs it can be missed. Additionally, defense experts often highlight any correct steps the urgent care did take. For example, “The urgent care appropriately administered medication X and advised the patient to follow up if not improved. These steps show the provider was cautious and met the standard of care.” In one case in which a patient died of a PE after an urgent care visit, another similar case had a defense verdict, possibly because the urgent care had documented that they warned the patient and arranged follow-up, indicating they did act reasonably. (jucm.com jucm.com) A defense expert would underscore those facts – e.g., “The provider told the patient to see her doctor or return if worse, which is exactly what a careful practitioner should do; unfortunately the clot was not preventable given the information at hand, so there was no deviation from standard of care.” (jucm.com)

Defense experts also use documentation to their advantage. If the urgent care records show thorough notes, normal findings, and patient instructions given, the expert will testify that this documentation reflects good care. Sometimes a defense expert will educate the jury about how urgent care providers use clinical decision rules or protocols properly. For example, they might explain that in patients with low-risk features, the standard of care does not require extensive testing – “Applying a clinical scoring system (like Wells criteria for blood clots) and finding the patient low-risk would mean it is acceptable not to order a CT scan.” (jucm.com) By doing so, they convey that the provider followed accepted medical practice for urgent care. In fact, one article advised urgent care clinicians that documenting a Wells score or PERC rule for PE goes a long way to demonstrate you met the standard of care. (jucm.com) A defense expert could echo this: if such a calculation was done or if the patient had low risk, the expert testifies the standard was met.

Moreover, defense urgent care experts may bring up the patient’s own actions if relevant – for instance, non-compliance or delay in seeking follow-up – not to blame the victim per se, but to argue that the provider gave proper instructions and the remaining risk was out of the provider’s hands. They can also compare what happened to outcomes in similar situations even with perfect care, to argue causation. For example, “Because this condition has a high mortality rate, even had the urgent care sent the patient to the ED an hour earlier, the outcome would not have (to the requisite level of certainty) differed. Thus, the alleged delay did not (to the requisite level of certainty) cause the damage.”

In essence, the defense expert’s testimony aims to reframe the narrative: instead of negligence, the story is one of a prudent provider faced with a challenging presentation who acted in accordance with urgent care standards. Any deviations the plaintiff points out, the defense expert might minimize as reasonable judgment calls or insignificant or irrelevant to the outcome. The credibility of the defense often rests heavily on their expert’s ability to persuasively normalize the urgent care provider’s decisions in the context of an urgent care setting.

Clarifying the Standard of Care: Both plaintiff and defense experts in urgent care cases have the overarching task of educating the fact-finders about what urgent care medicine entails. Many jurors (and even judges) may have personal experiences with urgent care but still lack understanding of its constraints and typical practices. Thus, urgent care experts often start by describing how an urgent care clinic operates: the limited tests available, the need to decide quickly, the types of conditions seen, etc. They then contextualize the case within that framework. This context is crucial so that jurors do not judge an urgent care case by an ED or TV-drama mindset. For example, a juror might wonder, “Why didn’t the urgent care do an MRI?” The expert will preempt that by explaining that urgent cares do not have MRIs on site and would not be expected to obtain one emergently – instead the appropriate action would be referral if an MRI was needed. In this way, urgent care medical experts ensure that the standard of care is applied fairly, reflecting the reality of urgent care practice. (elitemedicalexperts.com and elitemedicalexperts.com)

Experts can also clarify any grey areas or emerging standards in urgent care. Since urgent care is relatively young as a field, practices evolve. For instance, the use of telemedicine in urgent care or the integration of point-of-care ultrasound might come up – is it standard or above standard? Only an expert immersed in urgent care would know how common or expected those things are at the time of the incident. This can prevent plaintiffs from unfairly holding a clinic to an aspirational standard that most urgent cares have not met, or conversely prevent defenses from claiming something was “just how it is done” if, in fact, most urgent cares do more.

Finally, urgent care medical experts often serve as important arbiters of credibility. Juries tend to find physician experts credible when they speak confidently about patient care. A well-qualified urgent care medicine expert witness who has practiced in busy urgent cares can connect with jurors by drawing on relatable analogies (“In an urgent care, it’s like being an ED doctor with one hand tied behind your back – you have to make do with limited tools. But even so, you know when to call for backup. In this case, Dr. X ignored signs that any urgent care doctor would have considered a 5-alarm fire.”). Such explanations not only clarify the standard but make the stakes and reasoning clear. Both sides leverage this – the plaintiff expert to say “this was obviously a red flag and they dropped the ball,” the defense expert to say “given what anyone could see at the time, their actions were reasonable.” In either event, the expert’s clarification can make or break the case by illuminating whether the urgent care’s care was within the bounds of accepted medical practice.

Examples of Malpractice Claims Involving Urgent Care

To better understand how these principles play out, it is helpful to look at a few real-world case examples from urgent care settings. In each of the following incidents, the involvement of urgent care medical experts was crucial in interpreting the standard of care and guiding the legal outcome:

● Missed Brain Hemorrhage: A 37-year-old woman visited an urgent care center twice in two days with a “worst headache of her life,” nausea, and dizziness. (jucm.com) Both times, different urgent care doctors treated her with pain medication and sent her home without any neuroimaging. On her third visit the following evening, she lost consciousness; at the hospital she was found to have a ruptured arteriovenous malformation (brain hemorrhage) causing severe brain damage. (jucm.com) In the ensuing malpractice case, experts testified that given her red-flag symptoms (sudden severe headache unlike any before), the urgent care standard of care required prompt transfer for a CT scan or evaluation by an ED during the first visit – not simply repeat painkiller injections. (jucm.com jucm.com) The failure to pursue emergent diagnostic measures was deemed a breach of standard of care. The case settled for $3.75 million, reflecting the catastrophic harm. This example underscores how an expert framed the urgent care’s actions as negligent by highlighting the deviation from what any prudent provider should have done (i.e., recognize a possible subarachnoid hemorrhage or aneurysm and act immediately). It also illustrates the limitation of urgent care: they could not do a CT on-site, but the standard was to appreciate that and send the patient to a facility that could – which the urgent care physicians did not do.

● Foreign Body in Wound (Improper Wound Care): A 9-year-old girl was brought to urgent care with a cut on her knee after falling on a glass object. (jucm.com) The urgent care provider cleaned and sutured the laceration but did not perform an X-ray to check for glass fragments in the wound. Two years later, the child developed pain and swelling in that knee; surgeons discovered a piece of glass that had been embedded since the injury, causing cartilage damage and forcing her to quit gymnastics. (jucm.com) The family pursued arbitration, and an expert in urgent care/emergency medicine testified that the clinic violated the standard of care by failing to thoroughly evaluate the wound for foreign material. (jucm.com) It was explained that standard practice for any acute laceration from glass is to either X-ray the area or explore it surgically to ensure no fragments remain. (jucm.com) The arbitrator agreed, awarding $250,000 to the plaintiff. The legal standard hinged on the concept that urgent care staff should have anticipated and looked for glass given the history of injury. An urgent care expert made clear that this is a basic expectation in wound management (not a high-tech requirement, just prudent care), and the documentation showed no such evaluation was done. This case shows how even a relatively simple urgent care procedure (stitches) can lead to liability if done hastily or without adherence to standard protocols. As noted above, glass is not radio-opaque so, unless it is leaded glass, it will not show up on X-ray. This needs to be incorporated into the analysis of such cases.

● Fatal Pulmonary Embolism Misdiagnosed as Pneumonia: In one lawsuit, a 44-year-old man went to urgent care with chest pain and was initially treated for musculoskeletal pain. (jucm.com) When he returned still in pain, an X-ray showed a possible early pneumonia, so the urgent care physician diagnosed pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics, and told him to follow up in 6–8 weeks. (jucm.com) The patient’s pain briefly improved, but then he developed blood-tinged cough (hemoptysis). The urgent care (on a phone call) advised him to continue antibiotics and follow-up later; tragically, he died 13 days after the first visit from a large pulmonary embolism (PE). (jucm.com) This case settled for an undisclosed sum. Experts for the plaintiff argued that failure to consider PE was negligence – any urgent care doctor should evaluate pleuritic chest pain and shortness of breath for a possible blood clot in the lung, especially on a return visit with new symptoms, rather than assuming it is just pneumonia. (jucm.com) They testified that the standard of care required immediate hospital referral for a possible PE, and that had that been done, the patient likely would have survived. Interestingly, a similar case went to trial (involving a woman with weeks of breathing issues diagnosed as pneumonia at urgent care who died of a PE shortly after). In that case, the jury returned a defense verdict. (jucm.com) The defense’s expert had convinced the jury that the urgent care physician’s evaluation was within standard of care – the patient did not exhibit classic PE signs, and the clinic did perform an exam and X-ray and gave reasonable advice to follow up. (jucm.com) The differing outcomes highlight how crucial expert testimony and specific facts are. In the defense verdict case, it was noted that the urgent care doctor had at least done some workup and given warning signs, whereas in the first case the expert could point out clear lapses (e.g., no documentation that PE was ever considered or that vital signs were reassessed). Together, these PE cases emphasize the point that recognizing high-risk conditions is a core urgent care responsibility, and whether that was done correctly is often the major issue. Documentation of decision-making (or lack thereof) swayed the results.

● Missed Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack): A man in his 50s presented to an urgent care with chest pain and unusual fatigue. (saponaroinc.com) The urgent care doctor performed an EKG (which was read as normal) and took vital signs (also normal), then concluded it was likely acid reflux. The patient was given antacids and sent home. (saponaroinc.com) Sadly, he continued to have chest pain at home and suffered a major heart attack later that day. (saponaroinc.com) He survived after emergency surgery and then sued the urgent care. The allegation was that the urgent care physician failed to appreciate that the patient’s symptoms were highly abnormal and suggestive of a possible cardiac event despite the normal initial tests (saponaroinc.com) A cardiology expert and an urgent care expert for the plaintiff together testified that normal vitals and EKG do not rule out a heart attack – the standard of care for urgent care, upon suspecting cardiac chest pain, is not to simply rely on an in-office EKG but to immediately transfer the patient to an ED for more definitive evaluation (cardiac enzymes, observation, etc.). (saponaroinc.com saponaroinc.com) The urgent care doctor, they opined, breached the standard by sending the patient home with only a reflux diagnosis despite the red flags. The defense contended that the doctor did a proper assessment and that the normal EKG made an acute heart attack appear unlikely; however, the lack of referral was a glaring point. This case was reportedly settled before trial. Like many medical malpractice cases, this one had strong and weak elements and it appears that the attorneys’ realization of that spurred settlement. It reinforces how urgent care experts can clarify the limits of urgent care diagnostics – explaining that a single normal EKG is not enough to rule out a heart problem – and that the expected action is to err on the side of emergency evaluation. Essentially, the urgent care’s mistake was not the initial EKG (doing it was good), but overrelying on it and failing to heed the persistent chest pain. An expert witness can make that distinction clear for the jury: that the urgent care met one part of the standard (performing an appropriate test) but then violated the overall standard by misinterpreting the situation and not taking the next necessary step.

Each of these examples shows different facets of urgent care liability – diagnostic error, procedural error, failure to transfer – and in each, expert testimony about urgent care standards was pivotal. Whether in settlement discussions or at trial, both sides used experts to argue what a competent urgent care provider should have done. For instance, after the retained-glass injury, an expert’s “when in doubt, X-ray and explore” admonition. (jucm.com) concisely summarized the standard of care that the clinician had breached. In the PE scenario, experts cited the importance of considering PE for any urgent care patient with unexplained breathing symptoms, recommending documentation of clinical scoring (Wells criteria) to demonstrate standard care was met. (jucm.com) Such details often come straight from expert advice and literature, and they educate not just the jury but also the urgent care industry (many risk management articles for urgent care are written by MD-JDs recounting these cases to help others avoid the same mistakes).

In legal practice, using case examples like these can be persuasive in arguments. A plaintiff’s attorney might present a scenario analogous to a known case and have their expert say “This urgent care’s failure was just like in that documented case – no follow-up on a vital sign, leading to disaster.” Meanwhile, a defense attorney might use a case in which the defense prevailed to show jurors “urgent care doctors cannot catch everything, and sometimes patients unfortunately have bad outcomes despite reasonable care – as in this similar case where a jury found no negligence.” Ultimately, the expert’s explanation of the standard of care and whether it was met is what the case turns on. The examples underscore the range of issues urgent care experts must be ready to address – from clinical decision-making to system processes – all through the lens of what is expected in the urgent care setting.

Conclusions

Urgent care medicine has emerged as a critical part of modern healthcare, distinct and distinguishable from both the PCP’s office and the emergency trauma bay. With that distinct role comes unique medico-legal challenges. For malpractice attorneys, understanding the scope and limitations of urgent care practice is essential to handling cases in this arena. As we have explored, urgent care physicians are trained to juggle a broad array of acute issues, but they practice with limited resources and time. They are expected to treat what they can and wisely transfer what they cannot. When lawsuits allege that an urgent care clinic failed in these duties, the crux of the matter is often whether the provider’s actions comported with urgent care standard of care under similar circumstances.

This is precisely where urgent care medicine medical experts prove their value. These experts serve as the translators between medical practice and legal standards – they articulate the benchmark of care in urgent care and help the court determine if the defendant met that benchmark. For plaintiff attorneys, an urgent care expert can pinpoint lapses (a missed diagnosis, a failure to follow protocol, an absence of necessary action) and explain them using industry norms or guidelines, thereby establishing deviation from standard of care. For defense counsel, a credible urgent care medicine experts can contextualize the care, highlight everything done right, and explain away alleged faults as reasonable judgments or inconsequential to the outcome. In both scenarios, the expert’s testimony brings much-needed clarity. Without it, jurors might mistakenly apply incorrect expectations to urgent care providers – either excusing substandard care as if urgent care were a no-duty zone, or conversely faulting a clinic for not performing hospital-level interventions. Expert witnesses ensure that the standard of care remains the measuring stick, grounded in real-world urgent care practice.

In the final analysis, urgent care malpractice cases often boil down to a battle of narratives: was this an understandable bad outcome despite proper care, or a preventable tragedy caused by negligence? Urgent care medical experts supply the factual and professional framework for each story. They educate the jury that urgent care is not emergency medicine with all the bells and whistles, but it’s also not an anything-goes environment – it has its own standards of prompt, thorough acute care. By doing so, these experts help ensure that legal accountability is appropriately assigned. For medical malpractice attorneys, partnering with a knowledgeable urgent care medical expert is typically indispensable whether building a case of liability or mounting a robust defense. Such experts illuminate what the reasonable urgent care medicine practitioner would have done, and thus directly inform the jury’s decision on breach of duty.

As urgent care centers continue to expand and play an even larger role in healthcare delivery, there will almost certainly be a corresponding growth in legal scrutiny of their practices. Malpractice attorneys equipped with an understanding of urgent care medicine – and the insight of qualified urgent care medical experts – will be well-prepared to navigate this evolving landscape. In the courtroom, as in the clinic, urgent care experts help bridge the gap: they bring the nuance of urgent care practice into clear view, enabling just and informed resolutions to malpractice disputes involving this ever-important medical specialty. (jurispro.com elitemedicalexperts.com)

Overall, urgent care medicine’s scope, standards, and legal exposures are now well-defined enough to be comprehensible to courts, thanks in large part to the experts who testify about them. By leveraging these experts and understanding urgent care’s role, attorneys on both sides can better advocate for their clients – ensuring that the standard of care, and not hindsight bias or confusion, is what ultimately guides the verdict.

IF YOU NEED A URGENT CARE MEDICAL EXPERT, CALL MEDILEX AT (212) 234-1999.

Sources:

Urgent Care Association – “Urgent Care: An Essential and Distinct Component of Healthcare” urgentcareassociation.org urgentcareassociation.org
American Board of Physician Specialties – “Important Facts About Urgent Care” abpsus.org abpsus.org
Scripps Health – “When It’s Time for Urgent Care” (2018 news article) scripps.org scripps.org
American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine – “What is Urgent Care Medicine?” aaucm.org aaucm.org
New York State Attorney General – “Urgent Care Centers” (consumer guidance) ag.ny.gov ag.ny.gov
Journal of Urgent Care Medicine – John Shufeldt, MD, JD, “Malpractice Trends in Urgent Care and Retail Medicine” jucm.com jucm.com
Saponaro, Inc. – “The Danger in Urgent Care Centers” (expert witness blog) saponaroinc.com saponaroinc.com
The Eisen Law Firm – “Urgent Care Negligence” (Ohio malpractice attorneys) malpracticeohio.com malpracticeohio.com
JurisPro Expert Witness Directory – “Urgent Care Expert Witnesses (FAQ)” jurispro.com jurispro.com
Elite Medical Experts – “Urgent Care Expert Witness” (expert consulting firm)elitemedicalexperts.com elitemedicalexperts.com
Journal of Urgent Care Medicine – Case studies (various malpractice case summaries)jucm.com jucm.com jucm.com
Van Wey Law (Texas) – “Heightened Standard of Proof for Emergency Cases in Texas”

Urgent Care Medicine Medical Experts: Scope, Standards, and Their Role in Malpractice Litigation