Urgent care is center is focused on providing immediate ambulatory care to patients outside the emergency room. Urgent care centers provide services t conditions that are not life-threatening.
Why do you go to urgent care? (1)
Reasons, why your patients go to urgent care are as follows:
- Patients usually visit urgent care because they had to wait for more than thirty minutes outside their doctor’s clinic. Now urgent care centers provide online appointment scheduling and you can visit urgent care at the right time.
- App of appointment automatically reminds you about the time of appointment.
- About eighty-four percent of patients are in and out of the center within an hour only.
- You can also walk into the clinic without any scheduling appointment. Wait time is still less when you go without an online appointment.
- Urgent care centers are affordable as compared to emergent rooms and private clinics.
- Emergency rooms are very expensive as you have to spend around more than two thousand dollars on a single visit.
- Urgent care centers are available in nearby locations such as commercial plazas or shopping centers.
- Urgent care centers provide insurance to the patients
- Many urgent care centers are associated with big insurance companies such as Medicare and Medicaid.
When to visit urgent care?
Urgent care centers are perfect for non-threatening conditions. They are also perfect if something goes wrong outside the nine to five business hours. Urgent care centers are open on weekends as well and their timings are flexible and you can go any time when your nearby clinic is closed. Before you visit any nearby urgent care, check their timings on their website. Following conditions are treated in urgent care centers:
- Back pain
- Blood test
- Minor fractures
- Diarrhea
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- X-rays
- Cuts
- Bumps and
- Scrapes
- Vaccinations
- Stitches
- Sinus pain
- Ear infections
- Sore throat and cough
- Bites of animal
- Lab services
- Sprains and strains
- Asthma
- Allergies
- Burning
- Urination issues
- Foreign substances irritating eyes and nose
- Minor burns or rashes
- Swelling, pain, and irritation in the eye
- Cold and flu symptoms
- Small allergic reactions
People usually visit emergency rooms for such conditions but they only waste your money and physicians’ time when they treat non-life-threatening conditions.
Time and cost favour urgent care centers
The cost of hospitals is high that encourages people to visit urgent care. When a patient visit to urgent care, average cost a patient spend there is 100$ to 150$ only. This cost can be reduced more after seeing the patient’s financial condition.
Patients only pay the cost of co-pay because seventy percent of patients use health insurance at urgent care centers. If a patient has no health insurance they had to pay the additional cost for X-rays, lab tests, and shots. They even had to pay for the casting of a broken bone. That results in high costs for uninsured patients.
Cost at emergency room varies depending upon the type of treatment provided. According to a survey conducted in 2017, patients had to pay around 1,389 for a single visit to the emergency room.
The time factor is also very important in the case of urgent care centers. The patient is served on a first come first serve basis and less than thirty minutes are taken when a patient comes to urgent care and leaves it after treatment.
So much time is consumed in emergency rooms because serious and life-threatening conditions are treated on priority and you had to wait for your turn. On average you have to spend more than two hours when you visit emergency rooms.
Secrets you should know about urgent care (2)
If your child wakes up with a high fever you don’t need to rush to emergency rooms. Urgent care is the best place to visit for non-life-threatening conditions. You get a cut while making dinner; you can go to urgent care for bandages. Here are seven secrets you need to know about urgent care that might surprise you.
- You might be surprised what urgent care can treat.
People usually know when to visit urgent care. Urgent care can treat patients for eye infection, any type of illness including pink eye, fever, sore throat, and allergic reaction. Urgent care is known best for treating minor injuries. Cuts, fractures, strains and sprains can be treated at urgent care. They also treat for dehydration with fluids. Facilities for lab tests and X-rays are also available. Advance technologies such as MRI, CT-scan and ultrasound are also available.
Emergency rooms should be preferred when you clearly see you bone after an accident or there is high risk of loosing a limb.
- When to go to emergency room vs. Urgent care:
Emergency rooms have more equipments to treat sever cases as compared to urgent care centers. Heart attack and stroke can be treat immediately in emergency rooms and one should only visit there when they feel symptoms. List of life threatening conditions:
- Heart attack
- Breathing difficulty
- Stroke symptoms
- Excessive bleeding or vomiting
- Overdose of drug
- Major breakage of bone and severe dehydration
- Poisoning and loss of consciousness
- Swelling of airways with any allergic reaction.
- Midday is the best time to go to urgent care
When you get sick or have several symptoms, you can’t wait to go to any hospital or urgent care but if you can wait you should go early afternoon or late morning. People usually go to urgent care after school or office timings so these hours are quite rushy.
- Limit calling ahead
Many urgent cares provide online assessment to their patients. You can call and discuss the symptoms but it is sometimes difficult to tell the exact cause. A visit to urgent care is necessary because physical assessment help your doctor to diagnose quickly as compared to on the phone.
- Yes, you can go to urgent care for flu symptoms
First of all, take all the precautionary measures to protect yourself from flu. You should get a flu shot immediately. If the flu happens, you can go to urgent care near you to take medications that can help you recover faster.
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