Seeking medical care from qualified doctors is not always an easy thing to do. From busy schedules to a lack of health insurance, there are many restrictions to seeking the medical care that is needed for many people all throughout the United States. Fortunately, urgent care centers have become to provide an alternative to emergency rooms and traditional doctors offices all throughout the country, seeing as many as three million patients over the course of the week.
And urgent care locations have become more legitimate than ever, especially now that up to 20,000 doctors have been employed in such medical clinics throughout the country, more than 7,000 of them at the current date. With the help of these doctors and other such medical professionals, a wide variety of urgent care services are able to be provided. In fact, many of these services are far more advanced and use far more medical technology than many people associate with urgent care centers.
Even more serious conditions can be treated at most urgent care locations all throughout the country. In as many as 80% of all urgent care locations, fracture diagnosis and treatment can be provided. And in nearly as many urgent care location – up to 70% of them, to be just a little bit more exact – IV fluids can also be administered, providing sick and dehydrated patients with the fluids that they need to avoid the dangers of dehydration and begin the process of recovery and healing. Without such services, such people would likely have to go to an emergency room – and an emergency room should be avoided at all costs.
While emergency rooms are of course important for real emergencies, it has actually been found that up to 65% of all people who visit emergency rooms could have instead received thorough and effective treatment at an urgent care location instead. Conversely, less than 5% of all patients who go to urgent care centers ever actually need to be transferred from the urgent care center in question to a local emergency room instead. And emergency rooms are less than ideal to wait in for minor medical concerns, as the average wait time nearly meets a full hour and often stretches even further.
Urgent care locations are able to get their patients in to see doctors far more quickly, as more than 90% of them actually have wait times of less than even just a half of an hour. For up to 60% of urgent care locations, patients see doctors after an average of just 15 minutes. In fact, the average patients are able to get in, see one of the doctors working, and leave all within a mere hour, if not just slightly longer.
And much as urgent care locations can take care of the larger medical complaints, they can easily handle the smaller ones as well. In fact, common infections are typically handled at urgent care centers, from respiratory infections to ear infections. Ear infections are particularly common among young children, as the way that their skulls are formed leaves them open to developing an infection. These ear infections are typically easily treated, and typically only need a course of antibiotics to fully cure, unless these ear infections are recurrent.
UTIs are also commonly treated at urgent care centers, as they are also incredibly common, with millions of cases each and every year – more than eight million cases are reported and treated each and every year here in the United States alone, let alone in many other places all throughout the world. Typically these infections occur in women who are having sex, as women have much shorter urethras than men do, making them far more susceptible to have harmful bacteria introduced, particularly during sex.
For many people all throughout the United States, there are many ways to get medical treatment – but urgent care is likely the most thorough, the most reliable, and the most consistent – as well as the most affordable and easy to schedule for the vast majority of people here in the United States.
