How An Urgent Care Facility Can Save You A Trip To The ER

 

It’s a scene that often plays out in countless emergency rooms: a patient with an immediate medical concern makes a late night trip to the emergency room only to wait and wait, watching minutes turn to hours as they wait for their name to be called and to be seen. In fact, emergency room visits now number approximately 110 million annually.

While going to the ER can be a quick fix, those who go could be in for a long wait to see an emergency room doctor. The average time spent waiting in the ER can be an hour or longer. Not only are visitors left in physical pain from long waits, they could be left feeling financial pain as well.In fact, the average ER visitor can pay more than $1,300 per visit.

With the cost of ER visits on the rise and long wait times, urgent care facilities or the local 24 hour walk in clinic offers patients many options when it comes to finding a quicker and more cost-effective way to be treated. According to the Urgent Care Association of America, an estimated three million patients visit an urgent care facility each week.

There are many benefits of the average 24 hour walk in clinic or urgent care facility whether you’re being treated for minor illnesses and injuries or being treated for something more serious.

• Roughly 60 percent of all urgent care facilities have a wait time of less than 15 minutes to see a physician or mid-level provider. In addition, 65 percent have a physician on-site at all times.
• The Urgent Care Association of America reports that more than half of patients wait 15 minutes or less to be seen and about 80% of all visits are an hour or less. So not only will you not have to spend all day at a doctor’s office, you’ll be able to see top doctors in a reasonable amount of time.
• Another of the benefits of urgent care is that more than 66% of urgent care centers open prior to 9 a.m. during the week and many within that grouping are also open on Saturday and Sunday.
• The majority of centers are open until 7 p.m. or later on weeknights and two out of five are open until 9 p.m. or later, so your chances of finding a 24 hour walk in clinic are pretty good.
• Seven in ten urgent care centers can provide IV fluids when needed.
• About 40 percent of urgent care centers use electronic prescription ordering systems and many of them use computerized systems to collect patient data, clinical notes and billing information.
• A physician or a group of top doctors owns about 50 percent of urgent care centers, which gives that person or group of people a vested interested in having the facility run to the best of its ability.

If you’re in need of a trip to the doctor, consider for a moment:

• Approximately 25,000 Americans suffer every day from an ankle sprain.
• Dizziness is the second most common complaint heard in doctor’s offices and it occurs in 70 percent of the American population.
• Sixty five percent of people older than 60 experience dizziness or loss of balance, sometimes daily.
• At least 40 percent of those suffering from chronic low-back pain don’t see a doctor or physical therapist.
• Up to 69 percent of Americans say low back pain affects them on a daily basis.

One of the benefits of urgent care is that visiting top doctors at a facility like a 24 hour walk in clinic can help treat all of these symptoms that plague Americans daily. The list of symptoms that can be treated at an urgent care is growing with facilities able to treat many a sports injury, wound treatment, muscle strain and sprains, asthma, ear infections, sexually transmitted diseases, dizziness and other ailments.

Emergency room doctors play an important role in providing patients with vital care, often in life threatening situations. But waiting in the ER for an everyday medical issue can take hours and there are many benefits of urgent care facilities, which can offer less wait time and help for anyone who comes in.

Sites like UrgentCareCenter.org can help you find a 24 hour walk in clinic in your area.