Emergency healthcare services are comprised of emergency care clinics as well as urgent care centers. These clinics began to come into being when the medical community realized that hospital emergency rooms were becoming overwhelmed with patients waiting to be seen. People were waiting in emergency room lobbies for two and three hours at a time to be seen by medical professionals.
Emergency health care services began to spring up in most towns and cities across the country in order to help alleviate this problem. The idea is to give patients somewhere to go for medical assistance when their doctor’s office is closed; for instance, nights and weekends. On average, the wait at emergency care clinics is approximately 15 minutes, a far cry from the time spent waiting at the emergency room. In addition, 65% of clinics providing emergency healthcare services always have a doctor available.
Walk-in urgent care facilities are often open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because these clinics have a no appointment necessary policy, patients are assured that they can just walk in and they will be able to see a medical professional.
Locations providing emergency healthcare services will see patients for a variety of symptoms. These include such complaints as sore throat and cough, minor burns or back pain, minor injuries and illnesses, itchy eyes, minor lacerations, flu treatment, and more. Reasons to visit a hospital emergency room consist of problems that could be considered life-threatening; for instance, asthma attacks, high fever in a baby under three months old, chest pain, breaks and fractures where the bone protrudes through the skin, uncontrollable bleeding, poisoning, and the list goes on. Because the ER has to line patients in a triage fashion, the lesser complaints that are not life-threatening will often wait the longest. The creation of urgent care facilities definitely lightens that load.
A study of urgent care clinics vs. hospital emergency rooms that was done not too long ago found that between 44% and 65% of cases treated at an ER could easily have been addressed by emergency healthcare services clinics. In addition to much shorter waiting times, patients should also consider that the average trip to the ER for symptoms that could have been treated at an urgent care clinic will cost upwards of $2000.00. The same medical situation treated at a clinic will cost about $226.00.
Obviously, these types of facilities provide treatments and services that are proving to be of great assistance to communities all over the United States. They offer skillful convenient and affordable care in addition to providing a place to go for patients who cannot get to their primary doctor’s office in a timely fashion. Costs are reasonable and the wait is doable.
While clinics that provide emergency healthcare services accept patients of all ages, there are also pediatric urgent care facilities where children can be seen when their own pediatrician’s office is closed. These child-specific clinics are often open 24 hours a day, and will treat children from birth to 21 years. They are available for treatment for abdominal pain, ear infections, nose bleeds, sore throats, headaches, asthma, and much more. The physicians treating the children will work hand in hand with the child’s primary pediatrician to be sure proper follow up care is given.
Depending upon the nature of the illness or injury that a patient is treated for at emergency healthcare services facilities, medical professionals will recommend whatever type of follow up care is needed. They will almost always suggest following up with the patient’s primary physician, or with a specialist for further evaluation. It is important for patients to remember that emergency care facilities are not meant to take the place of the primary physician. They are there to fill the need when the primary is not available, and the need is not serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room.
Because urgent care facilities are successfully filling such an immense need in the medical community, there are more than 20,000 physicians who are now choosing to practice this type of medicine. The need is great, and is constantly growing. As a result, many more doctors are moving over into this particular field of medicine.
