There are an estimated 7,164 urgent care centers currently in the United States, and this number continues to grow, with only an estimated 53% of that number having been in operation for more than 5 years. If you are a parent, this spread of urgent care clinics across the country offers a number of reassuring benefits to you and your family, as a provider of both adult and pediatric urgent care services.
Urgent care centers are designed to treat a variety of medical conditions that are not life threatening, but still require immediate care, such as musculoskeletal issues and respiratory illnesses. As these medical walk in clinics are primarily meant to help reduce the pressure on local hospital emergency rooms, they are able to offer a number of advantages over both medical center emergency rooms and doctor’s offices: for example, urgent care centers see patients encourage walk in visits and see patients immediately, with over 80% of urgent care patients waiting 15 minutes or less for treatment. This makes scheduling and waiting for a doctor’s appointment unnecessary and can help you avoid the long wait of an emergency room visit. Moreover, urgent care clinics have been shown to complete 80% of all of their patient visits within 60 minutes or less.
As an additional benefit, urgent care facilities are also known for providing extremely accessible and affordable medical care: in the United States, not only do most urgent care centers accept health insurance plans to cover payment, but most typically charge co-pay fees relative to that of a doctor’s office. This makes a visit to an urgent care facility significantly less expensive than the typical emergency room visit, especially if the condition being treated is not critical.
Like your local doctor’s office, urgent care centers are typically required to be managed by a licensed American physician. As a walk in health clinic, they can provide a number of services, going so far as to prescribe antibiotics and pain medication in addition to evaluating the patient’s needs in a single visit. Because of these benefits and range of services, visiting an urgent care clinic is often the most convenient source of medical care for parents and families. Therefore, if you or a family member requires non-critical medical attention, visit your nearest urgent care clinic for adult or pediatric urgent care services.
Find more on this here: www.immediateclinic.com