Healthcare today is often synonymous with long wait times, expensive bills, and less-than-stellar consultations.
Not so with 24 hour urgent care. Whereas waiting for a doctor’s appointment can worsen your condition and the emergency room can put you out of pocket, the urgent care model can give you a more well-rounded experience. Americans today are in a rough spot attempting to balance insurance, clinic visits, and personal therapists. More flexible and affordable options aren’t just luxurious, but necessary to keep the population healthy. A 24 hour urgent care model is designed to slot into your life easily and leave you feeling better in one way or another.
What could more convenient medical care do to improve your quality of life this year? Learn more about your Washington online doctor and on-demand care below.
Take a moment to lean back and think about your current healthcare options. Are you on employer-sponsored insurance or do you rely on state insurance? When’s the last time you visited a clinic due to a frustrating, but not life threatening condition? Many Americans today often have to juggle two or three healthcare options on average, particularly those without a full-time job. Medical debt remains one of the highest forms of debt in the country and is responsible for a significant amount of personal bankruptcies.
The need for effective, reliable healthcare is more needed than ever. Sometimes you’re in too much pain to wait a week or two to see your regular doctor. Visiting the emergency room can even make things worse in the long-term, as ambulance fees can number in the thousands. A recent study found anywhere between 40% and 60% of emergency room visits could have actually been treated at an urgent care center. This means hundreds of dollars that could have been saved for a similar approach in quality care.
What makes the 24 hour urgent care model stand out? It’s one of the fastest ways of addressing your symptoms. Doctors spend between 15 to 20 minutes with each patient, with wait times averaging 30 minutes or less in most locations. A general physician in the United States will receive 3,500 visits every year, with a specialist doctor receiving around 2,700 annual visits. Overall, studies have shown 70% of general physicians will spend over 30 hours offering direct patient care every single week.
Virtual care is a natural progression you should be aware of. An online doctor can give you useful information and redirect you to additional resources at just the click of a button. Telemedicine and virtual health providers rely on three methods of approach to help their patients. The first will offer patients virtual care with a primary care provider, while the second will rely on the patient seeing different care providers (though within the same organization as the patient’s primary care doctor). The third will search for different providers from different organizations.
A Seattle online doctor can line up with your 24 hour urgent care to give you the prompt reliability you crave. A recent study on the function of virtual healthcare found a little over 50% of respondents willing to use these services to see their provider. Virtual care (also known as telemedicine) will be worth $35 billion once 2020 comes around, changing the face of American healthcare as we know it. Urgent care is a useful model that sits in-between regular doctor visits and the emergency room. It can offer treatment and relief for any number of moderate illnesses or injuries.
Convenient medical care is not a myth. Talk to your provider about possible virtual healthcare models so your 2019 can be the most affordable yet.