No matter your medical concern, urgent care is close by for your treatment. Urgent care is available for some of the most common problems including the cough and cold, breaks and sprains, pain and other smaller injuries. No matter what the medical staff members at these clinics are able to handle it all.
What is Urgent Care?
Urgent care is similar to the emergency room, usually open 24 hours a day and offering immediate professional medical care for almost every possible medical condition. With sprains, strains and other athletic injuries that take place every day, these doctors and nurses are highly needed so that patients don’t have to wait for hours at the ER. More immediate care is available at urgent care, and there is likely one just around the corner from your home.
Urgent care centers are available in every town, but there is always the question of when to go to urgent care versus the emergency room. There are times when urgent care is much more efficient, especially with their ability to see all patients as they come in.
The Best Times to Visit Urgent Care
Sometimes the emergency room seems like the most reliable immediate option for medical care, but that is often not the case. One important thing to remember is that urgent care centers are usually nearby and are often taking patients consistently, with much shorter wait times than the ER. The following list includes the best times to consider when to go to urgent care versus ER:
- First Items – The first set of items that are likely best to be handled at urgent care include things like sprains and strains, along with the potential broken bones that will be placed at the back of the list at the ER. Luckily, urgent care has a testing lab, and they are able to stabilize these injuries in the event that they need to be treated at the hospital or by your family physician.
- Second Items – The next set of items are those ugly illnesses that seem horrible when we have them but are not of the life-threatening sort that would bring them to the top of the list at the ER. Things like a heavy cough, chest congestion, ear infection, sinus infection, colds, flu, or others that may just need a prescription. With experienced medical professionals at urgent care, you can get prescriptions immediately without having to wait for hours at the ER to even be seen.
- Third Items – Additionally, some of the injuries or issues that can be taken to urgent care instead of emergency care include scrapes and scratches, headaches, abdominal pain, neck aches, and more. These may just need mild treatment, but there is always the possibility that something could become worse as you spend hours waiting in the emergency room for care.
Coming to a clinic there is an immediate ability to gain treatment for almost injury or illness you may be facing at an emergency. Additional services are available like those for rehabilitation, insomnia, ADD, ADHD, and others. These centers are able to help patients at all times, while they are also often very close to everyone. With a quality medical staff, there is much to gain from urgent treatment any time an emergency health issue comes into play. Luckily, without the ER, there is no need to worry about the extreme wait that may cause additional trouble.
