Having a primary care physician, also often known as a family doctor, can be a hugely important thing indeed. After all, the average primary care physician will be able to assess your overall general health on a regular basis and will therefore be able to spot any inconsistencies in this health – or anything that is particularly worrying. For many people, having a primary care physician is essential, as they know and understand your medical history far better than any random doctor you could also seek care from.
The primary care physician is also hugely important for children to have access to in the form of the pediatrician. After all, well child visits are a must, not only to assess the overall growth and development of the child in question, but to give them the chance to be fully vaccinated as well. Though vaccines have become something of a controversial subject in recent years, there is no doubting the fact that they are quite hugely important indeed. Through vaccinations, immunity is granted for a whole host of unpleasant and even life threatening conditions, something that is not to be underestimated in overall importance for preventing against.
A primary care physician can also assess various cases of illness and injury, as both are certainly quite commonplace in the world as we know it. Illness and injury should both be treated promptly, as this can allow the person impacted by them to heal and recover from these illnesses and injuries as much as it is truly possible. For many people, this will mean seeing their primary care physician, who will be more than equipped to both treat and diagnose a wide array of conditions.
For example, dizziness is a common complaint. In fact, this complaint is more widely seen by general care practitioners than anything else. And dizziness can certainly stem from a wide array of places. In many cases, dizziness is not even a sign of anything more serious, but simply a symptom of something like a common cold or even just not having enough food throughout the course of the day. However, having your dizziness evaluated by a skilled and competent medical professional is really an absolute must, as it is far better to be safe than it is to be sorry, to say the very least.
But what about when the office of your general care practitioner is closed? While many people think that they then must go to the local emergency room, this is fortunately no longer the case. After all, it is best to avoid the ER as much as you possibly can, only going in the event of a true medical emergency. This is due to the fact that the typical emergency room will be very crowded indeed, accruing long wait times and costing a great deal of money as well.
Instead, when you can’t get in to see your general care practitioner you should consider going in to your local urgent care clinic. After all, urgent care clinics are much more popular and widespread than they have ever been before, found in more than 7,000 places all throughout the country. Over the course of just one week alone, it is likely that the typical urgent care center and all urgent care centers in total will services about three million people. At the current date, as many as 20,000 doctors are also employed.
For many people, the care that these urgent care centers can provide is really quite high quality indeed, all things considered. After all, up to 80% of all urgent care locations can actually provide the proper treatment needed for fractures, something that many a person would likely be quite surprised to learn. In addition to this, simple conditions like colds, of which there are up to one billion a year, up to ten contracted by the average healthy child, and even the flu. In some urgent care locations, flu shots will even be provided to help risk the spread of such a condition. Therefore, your local urgent care center can be a highly valuable source of medical care indeed.