If you develop a medical concern and are in need of medical care when your normal family doctor’s office is closed, you might be tempted to go to the local emergency room. After all, an emergency room can provide you with care around the clock. In addition to this, the emergency room is legally obligated to treat each and every patient that comes its way, no matter what the circumstances and no matter what their insurance status.
However, the local emergency room is far from the best place to go when it comes to less emergent medical conditions. For one thing, it’s time consuming. It is likely to be at least an hour – if not more – before you are even able to get in to see a doctor or nurse. In total, you’ll likely spend multiple hours there before being released – even for a relatively minor medical concern. And to compound on this, the costs of emergency rooms are high indeed. You will almost certainly not end up owning less than $500 and, on average, people pay more than $1,000 for emergency room visits.
Fortunately, urgent care locations have sprung up all throughout the country, their urgent care treatment providing a viable alternative for those in need of medical help. After all, there are now up to 20,000 doctors working at these urgent care locations all throughout the country, and these doctors are just as qualified as any other, including those who work in the emergency room. Fortunately, more and more urgent care locations are springing up, with more and more people visiting such urgent care clinics. Over the course of a week, a mere seven days only, more than three million people will receive care from some type of a walk in clinic or another. Urgent care locations also bring in more patients simply due to the fact that as many as 85% of them are actually open each and every day of the week.
When you’re considering going to one of the urgent care locations in your area, think about the fact that up to 97% of all cases seen first in urgent care locations will be able to be treated there, meaning that only a small fraction of cases seen in the average urgent care center will ever need to be sent for hospital emergency room care. Therefore, it is more likely than not that urgent care locations will be able to provide comprehensive medical treatment for whatever is ailing you.
For instance, you might go to one of the urgent care locations in your area with some type of an infection. Ear infections are commonly seen at the local urgent care center, thanks to the fact that they are hugely prevalent in the population of children, thanks to genetics and the shape of the child’s head. Urinary tract infections (also known, perhaps more frequently, just as UTIs) are also frequently seen. In fact, the course of just one year will see more than eight million urinary tract infections diagnosed throughout the United States alone. Fortunately, such issues are easily treated with a course of antibiotics and can therefore urgent care locations are typically more than equipped to handle them.
Medical attention for various injuries can also be given at urgent care locations found all throughout the country. Consider even an injury like a sunburn. While many people don’t necessarily think of a sunburn as becoming all that serious, they really can. Some sunburns are nothing more than a nuisance, but others can be classified as second degree or even, in more rare cases, third degree burns. This will perhaps be not so surprising when you learn that your skin can start the process of burning after only just 15 minutes of sun exposure with no protection. So if you find yourself with a particularly bad sunburn, it is likely a good idea for you to visit one of the urgent care locations or walk in urgent care centers in your area, if only to just receive much more thorough assessment of the burn, if only to be on the safe side when it comes to health.
