Another weekend another event.
You look forward to the time when the kids are older, the chance for injury is smaller, and the trips to the urgent care health centers are rare instead of common.
After another weekend trip for a needed x-ray after a sports practice injury, you sometimes feel like more people know you by name at the local health clinic then the number of people who recognize you at your neighborhood grocery store.
If you have kids you are likely accustomed to the sometimes frequent trips to the doctor to check out the latest problem. For some families, however, the medical visits to the family pediatrician are often difficult to get scheduled and the trips to the emergency room are simply too expensive. For many, urgent care 24 hours facilities are often the most convenient and the most affordable.
Are You Looking for Immediate Health Care?
With children in the house, it is difficult to predict when the next emergency will occur. A simple snack before bed can lead to a forehead cut requiring stitches when the child trips getting out his chair and falls into closest sharp edge. A leisurely walk before school can lead to a break out from poison ivy when your daughter darts away from the path to see if she can get a closer look of a brightly colored bird she notices.
Right before bedtime and early in the morning before school events simply do not match the very structured hours that a pediatrician or family physician has to offer. Pediatric urgent care 24 hours centers, however, require no appointments and are available when you need them. With a walk in policy that accommodates the most untimely injuries, wounds, or illnesses, these quick care clinics are often the best answer to the health needs of families across the nation.
Urgent Care 24 hours settings also allow families to be seen faster than many hospital emergency rooms. In a hospital ER setting, patients with far more serious injuries may move the care of your child to the bottom of the priority list. With ambulance arrivals, for instance, your stop by the emergency room can turn into a several hour wait. Urgent care facilities, however, do not often see the same level of care needs of a hospital ER.
Compared to a pediatrician’s office that only keeps a few slots open every day for call in appointments, a urgent care 24 hours flexibility is more efficient. In fact, nearly Roughly 60% of all urgent care centers have a wait time of less than 15 minutes. This short wait time allows patients to see a physician or mid-level provider since 65% of these quick care clinics have a physician on-site at all times. Additionally, 97% of all urgent care centers in 2014 operated seven days a week and 99% are open at least 4 hours a day.
Quick Care Clinics Provide High Levels of Care
Just because you are getting quick attention at a clinic, does not mean the care you are receiving is any less valuable. For instance, these health centers have on-site x-rays and other evaluative devices. These clinics are staffed by registered nurses and qualified doctors. In fact, some think that they level of care that they get at an urgent care center is more personalized. Because these doctors do not have a schedule of patients waiting to see them, they are allowed the time that it takes to care for one patient at a time. In a pediatrician’s office, on the other hand, if the doctor spend 10 minutes longer than scheduled with one patient, the schedule is off the rest of the day. This rigidity keeps some doctors watching the clock so as not to get too far behind.
Quality care takes time and without the next scheduled appointment waiting in the patient lounge, quick care doctors may have more opportunity to carefully and skillfully evaluate the patients that they see.
Affordable Care Is Important
With some standard visit prices listed, it is often easier to understand the pricing platform at urgent care centers. The fact that the average insurance reimbursement is $103 for an urgent care visit indicates that these providers do a thorough job of monitoring prices and fees.
