For the average American, there is no difference between visiting an emergency room and visiting a walk in clinic. However, anyone who has this type of thought process is uninformed in terms of what walk in clinics actually do for people when they visit them. Here are all of the facts that surround urgent care clinics and your local medical clinic that allows for a walk in visitors.
Right now, there are just about 110 million people that visit emergency rooms every single year. While there are plenty of people who visit these emergency rooms because they are suffering potentially fatal issues, there are a lot of people who would be better off visiting an urgent care clinic instead. As a matter of fact, a recent study revealed that just about 65% of all emergency room episodes could have been treated in walk in clinics.
When people get treatment from an emergency room for a problem that could be treated by an urgent care they will end up overspending by a large margin. These cases will cost over $2,000 in an emergency room whereas in an urgent care facility it would only cost just about $225. So the optics of visiting walk in clinics are much more appealing instead of visiting an emergency room before weighing out your options.
Across the nation just about 24 different rural hospitals ending up shutting down in the year of 2013. While this may not seem like a big deal, people who live in the surrounding areas are greatly affected by this issue. This is why it is important for there to be more and more walk in clinics opened up around the nation.
In the year of 2014, it was revealed that just about 97% of all walk in clinics were open seven days a week and 99% of all walk in clinics were open at least four hours a day. The average urgent care facility will contain just about seven treatment rooms which means they can treat people at a good rate without having them wait too long. Plus, these urgent care facilities will have a physician there seeing as how there are now over 20,000 physicians that practice urgent care medicine today.
Right now there is over 9,000 walk in clinics around the nation and there are almost 100 new clinics opening every single year. Just about 50% of all urgent care facilities will be owned by physicians which are good because it means the market is fragmented. This means that the average owner of an urgent care facility will own less than three facilities and cannot dominate the market which is beneficial for the common person.
In the year of 2011, the average walk in clinic treated nearly 342 patients every single week, according to information released by the Urgent Care Association. Every single month, these same urgent care facilities experienced an increase of just about 28 additional visitors. Right now, just about 60% of all urgent care centers have a wait time that is less than 15 minutes which is great for people who visit these centers.
In Conclusion
Right now, there are so many benefits of visiting a family urgent care center that is located near the area that is your home. As previously mentioned, the price difference between the emergency room centers that exist throughout the nation and that will not only save you money but it will make sure that you get great treatment. The people who are staffed by these centers are some of the brightest minds in the field.