Urgent Care in Orthopedics & Spine: OrthoNOW Franchise to Expand

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OrthoNOW, a franchise business of specialized orthopedic urgent care centers, announced it would expand its franchise to include a location in Weston, Fla., by this fall and agreed to open several additional centers in Broward County over the next two to three years.
The centers are focused on assessing and treating a range of orthopedic and sports medicine injuries on a walk-in basis. Urgent care clinics have become a huge opportunity for orthopedic and spine groups over the past few years. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, there are around 14 million visits to the emergency room or medical facilities for men younger than 45 and women older than 45 who have broken bones; those visits result in around $21 billion per year.

Emergency department data from 23 stats found that sprains and strains were the leading reason for adult visits and accounted for 2.3 million adult visits all together in 2005.

OrthoNOW opened its first location in Miami in 2010 and developed into a franchise program last year with a network of urgent care centers. The company was recently recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top franchise opportunities for 2014. Injuries treated at the clinics include foot, ankle, risk, spine, knee, shoulder and concussion injuries.

The clinics incur a huge savings over emergency room costs and accept several insurances, including Medicare. Orthopedic physicians or specialists treat each patient arriving at OrthoNOW with more efficiency than the ER.

“For prospective investors, OrthoNOW offers a high [return-on-investment], a turn-key solution with a comprehensive support system,” said Alejandro Badia, MD, chief medical officer and CEO of OrthoNOW. “Having an all-in-one package that consists of coordinated, convenient, responsive, affordable and expert orthopedic urgent care presents tremendous value to not only patients, but also to driven entrepreneurs.”