If you’re looking to get comprehensive medical care, consider your local medical clinic. A medical clinic can provide more medical help than you might think, and presents a viable alternative to the typical doctor’s office or emergency room. For one thing, a medical clinic can treat a wide variety of injuries.
Ankle sprains are commonly seen in the typical walk in medical clinic. After all, up to 25,000 of them occur in a single day here within the United States alone. And an ankle sprain can occur much more easily than you might realize, with more than three quarters (around 80%, to be just a bit more precise) of all sprains caused simply by an inward rolling of the ankle, an inversion. And there is no doubt about it that an inversion can happen quite simply throughout the course of day to day life.
But while some ankle sprains are relatively minor, others will be much more serious indeed. Some might worry that they have actually fractured the ankle in question, not just sprained it. And the difference between the two can be very difficult to differentiate between without the proper testing or imaging. Unfortunately, many people think that the nearest emergency room is the only place to go for an issue such as this, an injury so severe.
But the nearest medical clinic or urgent care center is also likely to be able to help. After all, a full 80% of all urgent care locations are now able to provide a diagnosis for and treatment of minor fractures. For those who are worried about an ankle sprain, therefore, the nearest medical clinic is a great place to go. After all, going to a medical clinic will certainly cost less in terms of time and money alike, at least in comparison to the typical emergency room location, where wait times stretch to, on average, a full hour and costs continue to climb from year to year.
Urgent care clinics also provide care for various other injuries. Sunburns, for instance, are commonly seen in just about any given medical clinic, especially during the summer months when the sun is strongest and people are more likely to be spending time outside on a regular basis. And sunburns can occur much more quickly than many even realize. In fact, it only takes around 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure for damage to the exposed skin in question to begin. And a burn will follow shortly after if precautions are not taken.
Various illnesses can also be treated at a medical clinic, as up to 20,000 doctors are now employed at walk in health clinics found all throughout the country. As wound repair is the most common procedure performed at these urgent care centers, respiratory infections are the most common illness treated. In addition to these respiratory infections, the typical walk in clinic is likely to see many cases of the common cold – of which more than a billion total cases will occur throughout the course of a single year – and the flu, which can impact up to one fifth of the population in this same span of time, depending on the severity of that particular flu season.
Urgent care clinics can even provide some level of preventative care. Flu shots can commonly be found at just about any medical clinic, though they will typically only be able to administer these flu shots to adults. Most children will still need to visit their pediatrician to have one done. But getting your flu shot is hugely important, as the more people who get the flu shot the less the flu itself will spread. And even though the flu shot is not able to prevent all cases of the flu (thanks to the nature of the illness itself), there are certainly benefits to getting it. For one thing, some level of protection is most certainly better than no protection at all. In addition to this, it has also been found that getting the flu shot can help to reduce your chances of developing some of the more serious complications that the flu can lead to, such as pneumonia and sepsis, which can all too quickly prove to be life threatening.