Here in the United States, there are a number of different ways to get necessary medical care. However, not all of these ways are ideal or even accessible for many people all throughout this country. For instance, not having medical insurance can be a prohibitive factor in seeking medical care from many family doctors and other such medical care practitioners, who require a form of insurance in order to provide services. Many people also find that they develop medical concerns at a time when their doctor’s office is not open, such as later in the evening or on a weekend or holiday.
For many of these people, the local emergency room seems like the only place to get treatment, but this can be certainly less than ideal for a number of reasons itself. For instance, though all emergency rooms must provide care to all patients whether or not they are covered under any form of medical insurance, it’s also important to note that emergency room fees are quite high indeed – even for those people who are insured. As a matter of fact, it’s not uncommon for the typical emergency room bill to climb above $1,000 – and any given emergency room bill is not all that likely to dip too far below a final total of $500 at the very least.
Emergency room wait times are less than ideal as well, thanks to the fact that many people are in need of medical services but there are only so many ER doctors and medical staff (such as nurses) to go around. For a patient that doesn’t have an emergent medical concern, a typical wait time in the emergency room might be as long as an hour. In many cases, it stretches out even longer than that.
However, the local medical clinic or urgent care clinic is becoming more a staple than every before, commonplace in so many areas of this country. A medical clinic is ideal in so many different ways and such a medical clinic can end up providing a viable alternative to the local emergency room or even to a local general care practitioner’s office, should such a place not be ideal for meeting medical needs. And the benefits of a local medical clinic are vast, aside from just the medical help that they are able to provide.
First of all, the average urgent care center, the average medical clinic, is more likely than not going to be open every single day of the week, including weekends. In fact, this is the case for up to 85% of all urgent care locations throughout the country. And many an urgent care location is open earlier in the morning and later into the evening than the traditional doctor’s office as well, making it ideal for medical concerns that arise early in the morning or late into the night (or even just during evening hours, as the case may be).
And the average medical clinic will be more than able to meet the medical needs of patients that they see, as all medical clinics are staffed by competent local doctors. In fact, as many as 20,000 doctors are employed at such urgent care clinics all throughout the country, a number that is only continuing to grow as the years pass on. And these doctors are able to perform more complex treatments and meet more complex medical needs than many people actually realize.
For instance, the vast majority of all urgent care locations – up to 80% of them, to be just a little bit more specific – can provide not only diagnosis for fractures, but fracture care as well. In addition to this, treatment for sprained ankles is also common, since there are at least 25,000 new sprained ankles occurring over the course of just one single day here in the United States alone. And while a sprained ankle might not seem like all that big of a deal, doctors at any given medical clinic can attest to the fact that sprains can be quite difficult to recover from indeed, and very painful in the meantime.
