Where Do You Go for After Hour Healthcare Needs?

The second you walked in her room and heard your daughter’s raspy breathing you knew that this would be a very long night. Earlier during the winter break, your older son had some similar symptoms. After having head and chest congestion for about a week, you finally ended up seeking care are at a local urgent care clinic. Unable to get an appointment on the limited schedule that was offered at your pediatrician’s office, you saw few options. And while you may have been a little hesitant at first, the doctor and nurses were excellent. They were through and quickly took an x-ray to eliminate the possibility of pneumonia, but instead diagnosed a respiratory airway disorder. Somewhat similar to asthma, the condition responded quite well to a steroid shot and the use of oxygen. After a few hours you were able to take your son home that same evening, and the onsite pharmacist was able to fill the needed prescriptions.
Now that your husband seems to have very similar symptoms, your husband says the decision is simple. You will not wait for tomorrow and hope for an appointment to get into the pediatrician. Instead, you are going right now to the same urgent care. With any luck, you will be able to determine if your daughter has the same respiratory issue that her brother had. If so, the treatment can begin immediately, and hopefully, your daughter will be on the road to recovery. She will not make the first day of class after break, but hopefully she will be good to go after a weekend of rest.
Are You Looking for Late Night Healthcare for Your Child?

Why is that your children rarely get sick at convenient times? You have just had your kids home for the last two weeks with very scheduled activities, and now that it is the night before they return to school after winter break is when you find yourself in need of healthcare. Fortunately, today’s healthcare platform includes many options other than traditional family physician and pediatrician appointments. Even more fortunate is that Americans do not have to pay the expensive fees to go to a hospital emergency room when an illness or injury happens after regular office hours or on weekends. Walk in healthcare clinics provide a variety of options for Americans across the country.
Quick care settings offer affordable care. Sometimes located within a grocery store ir shopping mall, sometimes located as a stand alone building, one thing that many quick care settings offer is affordable prices. In fact, many of these locations post their prices on their websites or on the wall of the clinic itself. Understanding that you are not going to have to pay the expensive fees of a hospital can make seeking care when it is needed an easier decision. Without the overhead of an entire hospital, quick care settings understandably offer less expensive service. Affordable care, however, does not mean that patients cannot use their current insurance plans and prescription cards.
Walk in clinics offer convenient hours. Did you know that the majority of these centers remain open until 7:00 pm or later on weeknights? In fact, as many as 90.6% have these hours that extend until 7:00 pm or later. Additionally, 40% of these clinics remain open until 9:00 pm or later. The fact that you can walk in without an appointment is also a benefit. Knowing that children rarely get sick on a set schedule, it is comforting to know that without a prior appointment you can get the care you need from a quick care clinic.
Urgent care centers provide reliable services. As many as 40% of urgent care centers in the U.S. use electronic prescription ordering systems, and an even greater percentage use computerized systems for immediatley viewing both lab and imaging results. Fracture care is provided by 80% of these clinics. Becasue as many as 50% of urgent care centers are owned by a physician, or a group of physicians, means they not only provide skilled care, but they are also versed in collecting patient demographics, billing services, tracking condition and procedure coding, as well as linking clinical notes to permanent records with primary care physicians.