
More than 101 million Americans live in federally designated primary care shortage areas, according to federal data from March 2026. Without a regular doctor, many go to urgent care instead. Nearly 30% of US adults visited an urgent care center or retail clinic in 2019, the CDC found.
Those visits are a screening opportunity that largely goes unused. A fingerstick A1c needs no fasting and no specialized operator, and it returns a result in about 10 minutes. It is not routinely built into urgent care workflows. Meanwhile, 11 million US adults have diabetes and don’t know it, and 8 in 10 of the 115 million with prediabetes are also unaware, according to the CDC. Most never get tested at the place they actually show up for care. mdsc.pe/4yhIhbG

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