The KeyCare Brief, 2026 YTD.
Published October 2026
Year to Date Fact Sheet
Two thirds of visits replaced an in-person acute encounter.
Asked at eCheck-in where they would have gone instead, 65% of patients name urgent care or the emergency room.
Jan 01, 2026 – Sep 30, 2026
At a Glance: Completed Visits
Five Numbers That Frame The Year
65%
Would have been seen at an Urgent Care or ER instead
Care that would have reverted to a less convenient, higher-cost in-person setting.
10%
Would have gone to the emergency room
Emergency-room cost and low satisfaction for a problem a video visit resolved.
9%
Would not have received care at all
Care that goes unmet when inconvenience is the only barrier.
35%
Visits outside 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Convenient and timely access on the patient's own schedule.
31%
Returned to KeyCare for another visit
A different condition later in the year, kept inside your network.
Alternatives: Patient Reported at Check-in
Where would this care have gone otherwise?
Where this volume is coming from
Most of it is coming out of in-person urgent care and the ER, and for 9% of visits, out of care that wasn't going to happen at all. Another virtual service accounts for 6%.
Consistent with the broader Epic community
This lines up with what Epic shares about the rest of its community, where failed scheduling attempts routinely spill over into calls, portal messages, and ED visits.
Cost Avoidance · Case Study
Regional Health System avoided $1.7M of cost
Modeled avoided cost YTD
$1.7M
6,623 completed visits · ≈ $256 per visit
Credits only emergency room and urgent care visits avoided
Nets out the cost of the KeyCare visit
How the estimate is built
| Visits | Net per visit | Avoided cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency room avoided | 927 | $1,601 | $1,484,100 |
| Urgent care avoided | 3,179 | $66 | $209,800 |
| Modeled avoided cost | 6,623 | ≈ $256 | $1,693,900 |
Patient-reported alternative at eCheck-in (14% emergency room, 48% urgent care) applied to 6,623 completed visits for a single health system.
The 24-Hour Trace: Share of Completed Visits by Hour
One third of care happens after the clinic closes
Two peaks
Volume peaks in the 9 a.m. hour at 7.3% of visits, eases through early afternoon, then holds a second plateau from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. that carries 22.7% of all visits.
The overnight tail
12.1% of completed visits land between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., a window in which almost no ambulatory alternative is open. With the evening block, 34.8% falls outside clinic hours.
Day of Week: Share of Completed Visits
Demand barely takes a weekend
Flatter than a clinic
The busiest and quietest days differ by only 25%. The weekend has 27.7% of visits against a theoretical 28.6% if demand were perfectly even.
Monday is the outlier
Monday runs 13% above the average day. Sunday is the only day meaningfully below average, at an index of 90.
Who: Share of Patients
A working-age, primarily female panel
18–34
35–49
50–64
3–17
65+
0–2
Patient sex
73%
Female
27%
Male
<1%
Other / unknown
Two thirds in one bracket
67% of visits come from patients aged 18–49, the group least likely to have an established primary-care relationship and most likely to be working during clinic hours.
A 73/27 split
Female patients outnumber male by nearly three to one. The skew is consistent with the coded diagnoses: genitourinary conditions plus candidiasis account for 9.8% of all diagnosis lines.
Why: Share of Coded Diagnosis Lines
Respiratory illness leads the diagnosis mix
Acute sinusitis
Acute upper respiratory infection
Other disorders of urinary system
Cough
Acute pharyngitis
Nausea and vomiting
Conjunctivitis
Candidiasis
Digestive / abdominal symptoms
Asthma