{"id":19455,"date":"2021-12-13T13:28:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T18:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepapergown.zocdoc.com\/?p=19455"},"modified":"2026-02-05T04:09:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:09:37","slug":"best-practices-lgbtq-urgent-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zocdoc.com\/blog\/advice\/best-practices-lgbtq-urgent-care\/","title":{"rendered":"How Urgent Care Can Best Help LGBTQ+ Folks"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re making a visit to an urgent care center, you’re likely not feeling too great. But for those who are LGBTQ+, if a medical provider doesn’t offer culturally competent or gender affirming care<\/a>, a trip to urgent care can be especially<\/em> uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Advocates out there are pushing for urgent care centers to up their game when it comes to working with the LGBTQ+ population<\/a>. Still, they have a long way to go to guarantee effective, culturally competent care at the 10,000 or so urgent care centers in the United States.<\/p>\n

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Health hurdles<\/h3>\n

The LGBTQ+ population<\/a> is already at higher risk of mental and physical health issues, due to societal and cultural stressors. As more and more Americans identify as LGBTQ+, a record 5.6% in 2021<\/a>, it’s vital that the medical world adapts and learns how to provide adequate, culturally competent care.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it’s still quite difficult<\/a> for LGBTQ+ folks to find medical providers that offer this. And fears of discrimination can wreak havoc<\/a> on the decision to seek treatment in the first place. In many instances, these fears are not misplaced: An estimated 7 in 10 LGBTQ+ patients have experienced<\/a> negative care.<\/p>\n

The surprising role of urgent care<\/span><\/h3>\n

Because of these barriers to traditional care, many in the LGBTQ+ population turn to urgent care centers<\/a> as their primary source of medical treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cUrgent care center clinicians serve vulnerable populations on a daily basis,\u201d says Kim Youngblood, chief governmental affairs officer at the Urgent Care Association. Though these clinics can be used for acute illness or injury, they\u2019re also a relatively low-friction choice for those who may not have traditional insurance or a regular doctor, due to cost and convenience.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, urgent care centers present their own sources of friction. In these settings, for instance, it\u2019s highly unlikely that patients will be seeing staff or practitioners they\u2019ve seen before. This may mean needing to \u201ccome out\u201d all over again, or fielding questions that seem repetitive or invasive. Urgent care clinics also operate on a walk-in capacity, which often means that a patient needs to explain who they are and what they need in front of a waiting room of strangers.<\/p>\n

Whether or not these challenges are handled sensitively depends on the specific urgent care center and who happens to be working that day.<\/p>\n

While we have no clear data about what type of culturally competent care exists across urgent care centers in the US, we know one thing is true: it’s inconsistent. There are advocates in the industry working hard to eradicate those inconsistencies.<\/p>\n

A path forward<\/h3>\n

Groups like the UCA, as well as individual urgent care centers or networks, are working to raise the bar when it comes to LGBTQ+ care. They provide free resources (like the LGBTQ\u00a0 health toolkit<\/a> from the American Academy of Family Physicians) and offer continuing medical education courses.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to speak to the situation of every urgent care center, but many of them are part of large networks,\u201d says James Cobb, a registered nurse and former emergency department director in Texas. \u201cThese networks, by and large, mandate cultural training for demographically significant groups in their service area.\u201d Cobb points out that LGBTQ+ patients exist throughout the country, making this type of training fairly common.<\/p>\n

In terms of specific goals, most advocacy groups focus on encouraging centers to implement several important concepts into their work with patients.<\/p>\n