If you’re looking for convenient and thorough medical care, consider going to your local urgent care center. Going to an urgent care clinic can be ideal for a number of different reasons, after all. For one thing, urgent care locations are typically open later into the evening and earlier in the morning (and on weekends) than your average doctor’s office. Therefore, they can provide a viable alternative to the emergency room during these times.
And going to the emergency room is certainly something to avoid if you’re not having a true medical emergency. For one thing, emergency room visits are hugely expensive, typically costing at least $1,000 per visit, if not even more than that. In addition to this, the wait time is quite long as well, with the average emergency room wait lasting at least one full hour, if not even longer than that. In your typical urgent care location, on the other hand, the average wait time won’t even surpass a half of an hour. And in more than half of all urgent care centers, the average wait time won’t last longer than 15 minutes at the very most. The average urgent care clinic patient, then, is able to get in and out within the span of a single hour.
And the care that is provided at your local urgent care clinic is likely more extensive than you’d first think. After all, data has shown that as many as 85% such urgent care clinics are actually able to provide the diagnosis and treatment of fractures, though serious breaks will still need to be seen at a hospital. In addition to this, ankle sprains can also be treated in such places – and a good thing to, as up to 25,000 such injuries happen over the course of a single day all throughout the country.
Other types of medical treatment are also given. For instance, those who suspect that they might have a UTI (urinary tract infection) should go to their local clinic, as the treatment of a UTI is a simple course of antibiotics in the vast majority of cases. And with more than 8 million UTIs diagnosed in the United States alone, this is a type of treatment that is easy to come about and an urgent care treatment provided in the vast majority of all walk in clinics in this country.
Of course, common illnesses can also be diagnosed and treated in all walk in urgent care centers. For instance, the flu is particularly prevalent during the fall and winter months – and even into the spring. In fact, some flu seasons see up to one full fifth of the population infected. Even during much more mild flu seasons, up to 5% of all people in this country are still likely to contract the flu. And while the flu is viral and can’t be cured, going into a walk-in medical care clinic might mean that you can get an anti viral, which will reduce the severity and duration of your illness even though it won’t get rid of it immediately.
Many an urgent care clinic is likely to offer flu shots as well. After all, the flu is a serious illness and even the marginal protection a flu shot offers is a far sight better than no protection at all. And getting a flu shot also means that your symptoms will be far less severe and the chances of developing serious complications far less likely should you still contract the flu at some point during the season.
And urgent care centers are becoming more highly utilized than ever before and now employ as many as 20,000 doctors – a number that is only likely to grow as time passes on. In just one week, after all, as many as three million different patients will visit their local urgent care center. Over the course of the last two or so years, more than one fourth of the total population of this country visited an urgent care location at least once, if not far more frequently than that (as was the case for many people). Urgent care is, after all, here to stay for many years.