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5 Times to Visit an Urgent Care Center

If you’ve noticed an advanced urgent care center in your neighborhood, you might have wondered if it’s the right place for you and your family to get medical care. Knowledge is power, so from getting a flu vaccination to getting stitches for that cut, here are five great times to visit an urgent care center.

  1. When you need to get a flu vaccination; or when it’s too late. The flu can be devastating and can result in a lot of lost time at work and school. It can also be dangerous for anyone, but especially the very young and the very old. Getting a flu vaccination is a smart way to do everything you can to protect yourself and your family, in addition to keeping up good hygiene practices during flu season. You can get the flu vaccination at your urgent care clinic, and this is, in fact, one of the easiest place
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The Benefits Of Treatment At An Urgent Care Center

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For those without health insurance, looking up urgent care locations near you is probably the best way to get fast and thorough medical care, and is a viable alternative to the emergency room. There are many advantages of urgent care, from short wait times to lower costs, to quality medical treatment.

The emergency room can often have a wait time of up to an hour, while most urgent care locations (more than half) have an average wait time of only around fifteen minutes, less than half than that of the emergency room. One of the advantages of urgent care is that the majority of walk in urgent care locations only take about an hour, total, between waiting and being seen by a doctor, meaning that they are incredibly time efficient. Another one of the advantages of urgent care is that the majority of urgent care locations are also open far more frequently than a traditional doctors office, making them ideal for those who find it difficult to request time off of work to schedule a doctor’s appointment. In fact, more than 60% of all urgent care locations are open before nine in the morning and a considerable amount are also open in the evenings as well as both Saturday and Sunday. In fact, two out of every five are open past nine pm and at least 90% of urgent care locations are open until 7 pm.

Urgent care locations can treat a wide array of medical conditions, which is one of the advantages of urgent care, from the minor to the more serious. For instance, the vast majority of urgent care centers are able to provide a flu vaccination. Around 70% of all urgent care centers can provide intravenous fluids in cases of dehydration. And aside from simple care for sprains, four out of every five urgent care locations are able to diagnose as well as treat fractures. An urgent care center is also equipped to treat patients with common conditions such as the common cold, the flu, and other respiratory illnesses. Wound care is also common at an urgent care center, and many are able to even provide stitches to minor wounds in need of them.

For those not able to schedule appointments with a primary care physician for whatever reason, urgent care centers and urgent care locations provide a place for these people to receive quality medical treatment from skilled physicians. Nearly 20,000 doctors are employed in an urgent care center, and around half of all urgent care locations are owned by a physician or a group of physicians.

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Top 3 Reasons Why Urgent Care is a Better Option Than the ER

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If you have a non-life-threatening injury or illness that’s still serious enough to need to be seen by a doctor, visiting an urgent care express is a good alternative to heading to the emergency room if your regular physician isn’t available. Unfortunately, many people’s tendency is to turn directly to the ER — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that just under half of adult patients who weren’t sick enough to be admitted to the hospital had gone to the ER because their doctors’ offices were closed. This clogs up emergency rooms with cases that aren’t life-or-death and creates more work for already at-capacity hospital staff. Plus, it’s unpleasant for the patients, who often face long wait times and high hospital bills! So let’s talk about why urgent care express is the way to go.

What Do I Need to Know About Urgent Care Centers?

Urgent care centers help fill in the gap in medical care between the doctor’s office and the hospital. There’s a qualified physician available at almost every urgent care center during their hours of operations and about half of urgent care centers are owned by a physician or a group of physicians.

Furthermore, urgent care centers provide quality care at a fraction of the price and can assist patients with a wide variety of medical manners — from flu vaccinations to IV fluids, in some cases.

Just under 22% have over 450 visits from patients a week and they’re linked in to a variety of technology. Around 40% of urgent care centers use electronic prescription ordering systems and others use computerized systems to look at lab and imaging results and to take down patient information.

What are the Advantages of Using Urgent Care Over the Emergency Room?

Faster Care

Around 60% of all urgent care centers can confidently say that their wait time for patients to be seen by a physician or mid-level provider is under 15 minutes. The Urgent Care Association of America can give more specific statistics. A recent survey showed that just under 60% wait 15 minutes or less before being seen and around 70% of the total visits are an hour or less. That’s good for you: get in, get out, and go about your day like usual.

Extended Hours
So your kid comes down with a high fever at night or you badly sprain your ankle in the early morning. Or you need medical attention, but you can’t miss work. What do you do? Luckily, urgent care centers offer extended hours to accommodate these concerns. Over 65% of urgent care centers are open before 9:00 am during the week and just under half do so on Saturday. And over 90% of centers stay open until 7:00 pm or later on weeknights.

Lower Cost
An emergency room bill can be a steep one, especially if it’s out of network. That’s worth it if you have a life-threatening emergency, but not if you’ve broken out in a rash that’s itchy and uncomfortable, for example. Urgent care centers offer quality medical care for a much lower price and most work with a wide variety of insurances.

What Services Can I Receive at an Urgent Care Express Center?
Urgent care centers can help treat you if you have an accident or fall, minor broken bones, sprains, or strains, or if you’re having difficulty breathing. High fevers or the flu, or a bad sore throat or cough, can also been treated at urgent care. If you have a skin rash, infection, a urinary tract infection, or can’t stop vomiting, you probably want to get checked out at an urgent care center.

However, they can also do more mundane things, like provide a physical or a flu vaccination. About 80% can offer fracture care and around 70% can give IV fluids if necessary.

Next time you find yourself needing medical services and your doctor’s office is closed, consider visiting an urgent care express near you, instead of heading straight to the emergency room.

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Three Reasons to Find a Primary Care Provider

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Most of us have a paradoxical relationship with our health. On the one hand, we want to be healthy and do all that we can to ensure a life without illness or injury. But on the other hand, we often avoid things like routine check-ups, even if they’re relatively quick and painless. There are a few possible reasons for this. Some people are so self-conscious they don’t even like when a doctor fully examines them. Others, especially those who have reached a certain age, don’t like going through the tests physical examinations demand, such as mammograms and prostate exams. These exams aren’t necessarily harmful, but they’re not always pleasant either. Others still might simply be afraid of what their doctor will tell them. No one wants to hear they have high blood pressure, need to change their diet, exercise more, and change their lifestyle, even if knowing these things is to their benefit.

Regardless of all these excuses to not regularly visit a primary care physician, it’s extremely important to do so. The costs of neglecting one’s health long enough can be severe and sometimes fatal. Additionally, it can mean taking trips to emergency walk in clinics every time something goes wrong. While urgent care facilities and walk in health clinics are convenient and a crucial part of the American health care system, they can also be less inviting than primary care facilities and require longer wait times due to high traffic. If this isn’t enough to convince you to do a primary care physician search, here are three major reasons to visit your own doctor as opposed to ending up in emergency walk in clinics or the ER.

1) Building Trust and Knowledge

Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of having your own doctor is that you can form a relationship with them that is built on trust. Most emergency walk in clinics will have different doctors in rotation, so that even f you visit the same clinic you might not encounter the same doctor. Having a primary care physician, however, ensures that you’ll be in contact with the same person for a very long time. This doctor will begin to know you physically and emotionally, making it easier to examine you and diagnose any problems you might have. Additionally, the more you know and trust your doctor, the more transparent you will be about your habits, concerns, and needs. This reciprocal trust will make your doctor’s job easier and keep you healthier and more aware of your own body.

2) Referring to Family and Friends

The only thing you probably care more about than your own health and well-being is that of your loved ones. By having a primary care provider you trust, you can easily recommend this doctor to a friend or family member in need of a doctor. You’ll feel a lot better knowing that the people you care about can reach out to a trusted professional for their medical needs, and not merely have to rely on medical walk in clinics for their health care.

3) Lower Costs in the Long Run

We all know that health care isn’t cheap. Unfortunately, there’s no real way around this fact right now. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t cut costs here and there when it comes to our health. In fact, having a primary care provider is a great way to reduce your medical costs throughout your life. Getting annual or bi-annual checkups might seem like a drag and even a waste of money, but on the contrary these screenings often prevent you from becoming sick in the future. For issues like high blood pressure, catching them early on can mean saving you a trip to the ER down the road, and even saving your life. Needless to say, ER visits are anything but cheap. Getting a prescription for high blood pressure, however, is far less costly and a great way to avoid something severe like heart failure or stroke.

Thinking about our health can be scary. We want to stay healthy, but don’t always want to know that we’re at risk for a terrible illness. Emergency walk in clinics and ERs are there for us in times of need, but it’s always better to prevent the need for these visits in the first place.