The federal government has announced five urgent care centres will open across South Australia, including four in the metropolitan area and one in Mount Gambier.
They will be among 50 to be established across the country, as part of Labor's federal election promise.
The walk-in, bulk-billed centres will be open from 8am until 10pm seven days a week.
South Australia Health Minister Chris Picton said the centres would help ease the burden on the state's healthcare system by providing an alternative to emergency departments for non-life-threatening urgent care.
"We know it's really difficult to see GPs across the board. It is difficult even more so after hours or for those urgent appointments," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"People are waiting almost about 50 per cent longer than they were for a GP appointment compared to a few years ago and then the situation gets worse after hours."
Mr Picton said SA had seen a 70 per cent fall in the number of people who were able to access home doctors after hours.
"There's nowhere else you can turn and ultimately the advice has to be in those circumstances to go to an emergency department," he said.
"This will give people another option."
Mr Picton said the new centres, which he said were expected to be running by early next year, would not completely fix the state's ramping and primary healthcare issues.
"I wish there was one thing that we could magically do that was going to fix the situation but it's much more complex," he said.
"A hundred different things really need to be done in conjunction, but these clinics I think will be an assistance."
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said non-life-threatening category 4 and 5 patients made up more than 40 per cent of presentations to South Australian emergency departments.
Mr Picton said the urgent care clinics would be different to the state's existing five priority care centres, which were introduced under the previous Liberal government and divert people from an ambulance or hospital emergency department with a referral.
"To have a variety of different models would be quite helpful," he said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said the existing priority care centres had helped "tens of thousands" of South Australians avoid an emergency department since they opened in 2019 and she wanted to see them expanded.
She said the Liberal party welcomed any measures, including the urgent care centres, to help the healthcare system.
"Because, frankly, it's buckling under some pretty extraordinary pressure at the moment," she said.
Max Adams, a doctor at a priority care centre in Marion, said his centre treated patients who would have waited "many, many hours" at an emergency department.
"Somewhere between four and 12 hours on average, and [we] get them seen within an hour, usually it's within 20 minutes," he said.
He said more centres meant hospitals could focus their resources on life-threatening emergencies.
"It's going to be a relief for the emergency departments, it's going to be a relief for the general practitioners," he said.
"And I know that because it already has been for the past two years, that's the feedback we've been getting."
The announcement came as the Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) warned bulk-billing rates would continue to fall without more government investment in general practice.
"Last year, Medicare patient rebates went up a miserly 1.6 per cent, which equates to 65 cents," RACGP vice-president Bruce Willett said.
"That is clearly not enough, particularly when you consider that the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, went up 7.8 per cent last year.
"The costs of running a practice and ensuring high-quality care are rising by the day and patient rebates just aren't keeping up.
"Unless general practice care receives an urgent boost, patients will delay or avoid seeing their GP and end up in a hospital bed with a far more serious condition."
Expressions of interest for existing GP clinics and community health centres to establish the urgent care centres opens on Friday.
