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5 Reasons to Visit Urgent Care

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An urgent care facility is the best place to get medical care for anything that isn’t a life-threatening emergency. Whether you need a flu vaccination, an x-ray, or treatment for a sinus infection, here are five reasons you should go to an urgent care center first:

Urgent Care is More Convenient Than a Doctor’s Office

If you try to arrange an appointment at a doctor’s office, you’ll have to wait for their schedule to be open. This could mean taking your kids out of school or taking time off work for yourself. No one wants to do that for something like a simple flu vaccination. In fact, the CDC reports that half the adult visits to the ER that don’t result in hospital admission happened just because those patient’s doctors’ offices were closed.

Urgent Care is Faster Than the Emergency Room

The emergency room isn’t a great choice, either. Emergency room waits can be really long. Meanwhile, over at medical urgent care, seeing a doctor or other medical provider takes less than 15 minutes for 60% of people who visit. And 80% of all urgent care visitors wait less than an hour.

Urgent Care Has Convenient Hours

More than half of all walk in clinics are open before 9:00 am, and more than 45% are open that early on Saturday. More than 30% are open early even on Sunday. More than 90% of all medical urgent care is available after 7:00pm on weeknights, too.

Urgent Care is a Great Place to See a Doctor

There is a misconception among some people that you can’t actually see a doctor at an urgent care facility. A doctor or group of doctors owns about 50% of all the walk in urgent care facilities in America. And 65% of all urgent care centers have a doctor available at all times they are open. You can also rest assured that the clinic will refer you on if your case is more serious than they are equipped to handle

Urgent Care is More Appropriate Than the Emergency Room

If you need a flu vaccination or someone in your family has an infection or the flu, there is really no need to go to the emergency room. Urgent care centers are faster and cheaper, and 70% of urgent care centers can provide IV fluids while 80% are able to provide care for fractures. Sprains, illnesses, preventative care, routine exams, flu vaccinations: all of these can be taken care of at an urgent care facility.

There are a lot of great reasons to check out your local walk in clinic the next time you or someone in your family needs medical care. The hours are more convenient than those at a doctor’s office, and your visit will be faster and cheaper than heading to the emergency room. Next time you need a flu vaccination, why not try an urgent care facility?

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Three Reasons Why You Should Choose Urgent Care

Summer health concerns: part 1

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.

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Infectious Disease and Urgent Care Centers; How the Two Come to Together

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The concern over the spread of the deadly Ebola virus continues to strike fear in many Americans, especially those living in Dallas Texas and New York City, where patients who have recently traveled to western Africa are being treated for the virus.

Concern over the spread of the virus first came to light when two nurses treating an Ebola patient — the first and only patient who died of the virus while being treated in the United States — contracted the virus. While both nurses have made a full recovery, the second nurse to contract the virus traveled on a commercial flight while suffering from a fever. This caused widespread panic, as Ebola can only be spread to another by direct, physical contact with the body fluids of another who is showing symptoms of the virus such as a high grade fever, abdominal discomfort, and vomiting. While Ebola is not airborne, droplets from a cough or sneeze from a person who has Ebola contain the virus.

As such, health officials have now enacted a mandatory 21 day quarantine for those who have traveled to western Africa and treated Ebola patients. While this has caused much controversy — one nurse hired a civil rights defender, citing the quarantine as a violating of her rights — many feel it is best to err on the side of caution.

How do urgent care centers play into the Ebola outbreak? In the Dallas area, several urgent care clinics began preparing to treat patient who have come in contact with the virus by stocking up on additional hazardous material gear, such as respirators, suits, and gloves. Also, special quarantine rooms were prepped and staff underwent and reviewed CDC infectious disease training.

This happened as response to a Dallas County sheriff’s deputy who searched the apartment of the first patient to die from Ebola sough treatment at a local urgent care center.

This is a prime example of how several urgent care centers now offer advanced urgent care services, such as infectious disease evaluation and care. Advanced urgent care services continue to bridge the broad gap between traditional physician offices and hospital emergency departments. It is not uncommon for patients to seek advanced urgent care services for treatment of conditions such as concussions, broken bones, stitches, or other infectious diseases such as the highly contagious enterovirus EV-D68.

The line between hospital emergency departments and urgent care centers continues to blur, as urgent care centers continue to expand their services and take on a more prominent role.

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