The chances are high that at some point in your life, you’ll have to seek emergency medical care — or at the very least, medical care you can’t or don’t want to wait around for. Nobody wants to admit it, but accidents happen. You could twist your ankle jogging, or perhaps get dehydrated during a bad bout with the flu. As much as you might avoid it, nobody can have perfect health at all times. It’s certainly better that you seek professional medical care if you’re at all questioning if it’s necessary. Once, it seemed that the best option for emergency medical care was, of course, the emergency room. But many people choose not to go to the emergency room even when they perhaps should, for a number of reasons. They end up staying home and risking getting worse, not knowing that there is a compromise. You can get quick medical care without going to the emergency room — and without sacrificing all of the time, money, and energy you’ll lose during an emergency room visit, as discussed below. Through advanced urgent care, you’ll get the necessary urgent medical care without the sacrifice. Here are a few of the reasons why advanced urgent care could be a better option for you than the emergency room.
1. Quality Care
Your chief reason for balking over seeking advanced urgent care over the emergency room may be a perceived difference in the quality of care. Many people believe that the emergency room is the only way to get fast, quality medical care, as emergency rooms are attached to hospitals and advanced urgent care centers often are not. Conversely, even when advanced urgent care centers are close to or even connected to hospitals, people aren’t aware of what makes an urgent care center an urgent care center. Urgent care centers provide quality medical care, and employ medical professionals, just as any other legitimate center providing medical care would. In fact, 50% of urgent care centers are owned by a physician or a group of physicians. They provide care that can be found in emergency rooms — for example, 70% of urgent care centers can provide intravenous fluids when needed, just like an emergency room. Urgent care providers can prescribe medication as well. At many urgent care centers, simple fractures can be set — 80% of urgent care centers provide fracture care in total. Certainly, sutures can be provided when necessary. If a case is too complicated for an urgent care center to handle, they won’t provide inferior care, but rather refer the patient in question to a hospital. Urgent care is not lesser care; it’s simply a different way of receiving quality care.
2. Shorter Wait Times
Many believe that emergency rooms are fast and hectic places, the way they’re portrayed on television. The reality is quite different. Unless your emergency is grave, you can end up waiting for care for hours. In comparison, the wait for attention at an urgent care center is much shorter. It’s estimated that about 60% of urgent care centers provide medical care from a physician or mid-level provider within 15 minutes, with 65% of urgent care centers having physicians on-site at all times. According the Urgent Care Association of America, 57% of patients wait 15 minutes or less to be seen, while 80% of urgent care center visits last 60 minutes or less.
3. Convenience
Perhaps the greatest point about urgent care centers is their overall convenience. For one thing, urgent care centers tend to provide more affordable care. Therefore, it is easier for people to gain access to that care when they need it. Another good point about urgent care is that it is often available at all hours. While emergency room care is accessible at most if not all hours, the wait time and high costs make it less than appealing to many people. Care a doctor’s office, on the other hand, is only available during normal business hours. Urgent care merges the best of both worlds, making the simplest experience.
