Today started out pretty well. Calm, relaxed. As the last Sunday before the first full week of school for your 16-year old daughter, the family attended 8)0 am church, went out for breakfast and returned home for a day that would be mostly relaxing. Your daughter would practice piano and voice before thinking about the salad ingredients she needed to buy for the school lunches she planned to pack. After a short morning nap and while he waited for the grass to dry from the early morning dew, your husband looked forward to mowing on a day that was actually quite cool and pleasant. You planned to get some computer work done right away and then spend much of the day relaxing and reading.
They Are Called Emergencies Because They Are Unexpected and Sometimes Dangerous
No one plans for an emergency. In fact, they occur when you least expect them and often at the most popular times. For that reason, just when you think that you are going to have a restful Sunday afternoon at home something very unexpected happens. Just as you and your 16-year old daughter decide to curl up with a good book, your husband bursts through the door from the garage and yells that you both better get downstairs. With a partially blood soaked towel held tightly to his head he says that someone better get him to the emergency room. In the panic that ensues you find out that as he was replacing the weed eater on the wall hanging rack in the garage, he knocked one of the small ice shovels off. Glancing off his head before hitting the ground, the shovel had created a fairly long cut on the top of his head.
Although your husband came in fairly demanding that someone take him to the emergency room, you were able to tell that the surface wound might not need the expensive emergency room care he suggested. In fact, on many days in an emergency room his injury might put him at a lower priority which could mean a long wait along with the expensive bill.
Walk In Urgent Care Clinics Provide Reliable, Fast, and Affordable Care
Even when the first thought may be to go to an emergency room, there are several reasons that visiting a walk in health clinic may make more sense. Walk in clinics are often more affordable, convenient, and efficient than emergency rooms. In a time of complicated health care bills and puzzling charges, a walk in clinic is simply more patient friendly, while at the same time being very effective.
Convenient Hours
In many cases walk in health clinics are the convenient choice to get the quick care that patients need. In fact, a national survey indicates that more than66% of urgent care centers open earlier than 9:00 am during the week. Additionally, nearly 46% open that early on Saturdays and 31% do the same on Sunday. Conveniently located in many neighborhoods and strip malls, these walk in clinics provide a fast way to get the care that you need.
Hospital emergency rooms serve a greater variety of patient needs and most often have to triage the group waiting for care. As a result, an injury that might only take an hour at a quick care clinic could take half of a day in a hospital emergency room that has more serious patient cases. Obviously, the convenient hours of a walk in clinic provide far better option than a family doctor or pediatrician with limited hours and scheduled appointments.
Quality Care
Just because the care is given faster at a walk in clinic does not mean that the quality of that care suffers. Nearly 70% of walk in clinics, for instance, provide intravenous fluids when needed. Additionally, nearly 50% of urgent care centers also provide prescription pharmaceuticals. Often these are pre-packaged for dispensing a full course of treatment and are available in the clinic rather than having to visit a separate offsite pharmacy.
Factor in the affordability of a walk in clinic over an emergency room visit and it is easy to see that the convenience and quality of walk in clinic care makes good sense. Especially on an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon.