Urgent Care Medicine A Welcome Alternative to Traditional Hospital Emergency Room Visits

Imaging and labsWhen you get sick or injured and it isn’t serious enough to go to an emergency room, there are walk in clinics that you can use at any time. These urgent care centers allow you to go in and see a doctor without an appointment and without a long wait. If you want to find the nearest urgent care, look through your local business listings online and see where the closest clinics are. There will be a map that shows their exact locations. This will also allow you to check out the reputation of each clinic by looking at the ratings of each one.

If you have a high-level emergency, you can get in to see a doctor quickly. When you go to a health and wellness urgent care, you can expect to be seen just as quickly as possible. Many of these clinics pride themselves on their low wait times. They are a good option when you need immediate family care for anyone in your family. You don’t have to try to get in with a pediatrician that is booked up. Instead, anyone who is sick or injured can go to one of these clinics and be seen quickly.

Recent data shows that there are approximately 110 million emergency room visits made every year, which represents a significant increase over the past 10 years. Given that Americans depend on and expect to have access to health care on a 24-hour basis, it is believed that traditional emergency room visits have increased by approximately 22%.

Many of the individuals that seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms could instead be treated at an emergency room and urgent care center hybrid facility. The results discussed in a Truven Health Analytics report showed that for individuals with consumer-sponsored insurance coverage, over 70% of these emergency room visits were for non-emergency conditions. Furthermore, other conditions could have been prevented if these individuals had sought basic outpatient care prior to visiting the emergency room.

Milliman conducted a private study where it was found that roughly 44% to 65% of the emergency room visits didn’t require a hospital visit. Just as the Truven Health Analytics report showed, the Milliman study indicates that there is a large percentage of cases that do not require a hospital for treatment.

The flu, headaches, shortness of breath, and other issues can be professionally diagnosed and treated at an urgent care center. Since these facilities are able to offer the imaging and other diagnostic tools that are traditionally associated with hospitals, more people need to become aware of the services that are offered.

Most urgent care facilities were open 7 days a week during 2014. In addition to averaging 7 exam and treatment rooms, patients don’t need to wait as long to receive expert care. Other benefits include having access to an urgent care physician, which is a growing medical specialty.

The American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine reported that on average, an urgent care physician will treat 4.5 patients an hour. This will depend, however, on the condition of the patient. When an issue is severe or acute, such as when an individual is showing signs of an impending heart attack, an urgent care physician will focus their attention accordingly.

The per-visit costs of urgent care are also considerably less than a traditional hospital emergency room visit. When a patient visits the emergency room for a case that could be treated at an urgent care facility, it can average $2,039.00. However, if they visit an urgent care facility instead, there would be an average cost of $226.00, which is a fraction of the cost.

When someone needs medical attention that isn’t life-threatening, the best urgent care treatments are available at a local urgent care center. Furthermore, the best urgent care centers provide affordable care for a variety of health issues and medical conditions, including pediatric urgent care.

Since it’s clear that many Americans aren’t aware of the services offered by the best urgent care centers, it’s important that more information is made available. In this way, they will be able to receive the best treatments and services without having to wait.

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