Dive Brief:
- Dallas-based hospital chain Tenet Healthcare is launching a national chain of urgent care centers, known as MedPost Urgent Care.
- Right now, 23 MedPost Urgent Care centers are open in eight states, according to Becker's Hospital Review. Tenet expects to double the number of centers by the end of 2014.
- The MedPost centers, which are part of Tenet's 190 outpatient facilities, are staffed by primary care, internal medicine and emergency medicine physicians, as well as nurse practitioners and other health professionals, and have imaging and lab capabilities.
Dive Insight:
Hospitals have been struggling with the erosion of their core inpatient business for some time now, but not all have responded by diversifying further in the outpatient space. This is a major move by Tenet into this space. In a press release, Tenet says its acceleration in the outpatient service market is part of its broader corporate strategy to expand into faster growing, less capital-intensive, higher-margin business. Expect to see Tenet's competitors follow on what it's doing by pulling outpatient and initiatives out of their pocket too.