It was not the trip that you had expected.
After months of planning and budgeting, you were anxious to board the plane and watch your daughter nod her college gymnastics team compete in Alaska. When you finally arrived at the practice venue, however, you were immediately worried. Instead of watching your daughter work her aerial back handspring series on one of the four beams in the practice gym, you instead saw your daughter laying on a stack of mats. It was clear that she had on a leotard and had worked out some, but for now, at least, she was definitely off all of the apparatuses.
As you walked across the gym toward your daughter and the coach you were that she had been injured. Within a minute of talking to her, however, you found out that she was not feeling well. In fact, in the gym that was plenty warm your daughter was practically shivering. She had a fever, but was cold at the same time. The coach recommended that you take her in to a health clinic. At the age of 19 your daughter was certain that she recognized her early signs of strep throat. The coach said that the athletic trainer on staff had completed a primary care physician search and found an office that took walk ins.
So, while the rest of her team worked out, you and your daughter sat in the waiting room of the doctor you selected from the primary care physician search list the trainer recommended. When you were able to see the doctor, your daughter’s prediction was confirmed. The doctor prescribed a dose of antibiotics and even gave your daughter a steroid shot to try to make things improve even faster. With a jar of solution that included lytacane, Benadryl, and anti inflammatory and instructions to gargle several times a day you left the clinic hoping for a fast recovery and the possibility of your daughter still making the lineup on at least two events in the meet that was still two days away.
On that Friday morning, though, when the lineups were announced, your daughter was not on either the beam or floor rotation. She was disappointed, but not surprised. She was able to move mats and help cheer the team on, but this much anticipated trip did not go as planned.
Primary Care Physician Reviews Help Patients Make Health Care Choices
Consulting a primary care physician search when you are new to an area or just visiting can help patients make the best choices. When you are on vacation and are in need of health care services you have to make a choice that spans from everything from a medical walk in clinic to a hospital emergency room. Although it does not always come t mind, another option can be using information from a primary care physician search for offices that allow walk in patients.
Although a decade ago many Americans may have looked toward hospital emergency rooms as the best option for many unexpected healthcare needs, hospital costs are increasingly more expensive. For instance, the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey reports the average ER visitor pays total costs of $1,318 and a mean cost of $615. In addition to costing more money, these ER visits also cost more time. For instance, between the years 2003 and 2009, the mean wait time in ERs went up by 25%, from 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes.
It appears that Americans will need to continue to sift through a good deal of available information about health care choices. As our nation progresses toward a system the provides coverage to more and more Americans, it should come as no surprise that there will be an increasing number of options. In fact, according to some of the most current data, the U.S. needs about 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025 to meet the anticipated healthcare needs.
Making healthcare choices, whether at home or on vacation, will always come down to decisions about quality, price, and convenience. From free walk in clinics to traditional family care providers, health consumers have one goal in mind: finding quality care at an affordable rate.
