UPDATED 7/8/20
As a parent or guardian, you desire to provide your family with the best family urgent care that you can find. Choosing whether to seek treatment at an urgent care facility or emergency room can be an arduous decision. Urgent care facilities provide treatment for common uncomplicated health issues such as headaches and abdominal pains. On the other hand, the emergency room offers specialized care for severe and life-threatening health complications.
Thankfully, there are hybrid health facilities that provide both emergency room and urgent care services under the convenient care model. Here is why hybrid health facilities are best for your family urgent care needs.
Excellent Health Services at Your Convenience
The aptly named convenient care model provides both urgent care and emergency room services under one roof. Walking into a convenient care facility means that you will get all the medical attention that you might need. Traditionally, if you chose to go to an urgent care facility while your medical needs were best suited for an emergency room, you had no option but to leave and look for another hospital.
Additionally, you might visit an urgent care facility and uncover that your minor symptoms are masking a more serious problem. In orthodox situations, the urgent care facility usually has a doctor and a nurse with no amenities like an operation room.
In this situation, where specialized attention is urgently needed to address the underlying problem, convenient care facilities provide the advantage of having the emergency room under the same roof. Therefore, providing your loved one with the specialized care that they dearly need is as simple as transferring them to the next section of the building.
Saves You Time
The 2016 Urgent Care Association of America Benchmarking Report unearthed that 92% of hybrid urgent care centers had wait times of less than 30 minutes in 2015. Contrastingly, if you choose the emergency room as your family urgent care services provider, you are likely to get frustrated by the long wait times, especially if you have a minor health issue. This is because the emergency room follows the triage system, where patients with the most life-threatening complications are attended to first.
Resorting to a convenient hybrid urgent care facility means that you will get timely primary medical care as soon as possible, no matter the situation. In cases where the health complication of your loved one is escalating fast, a convenient care facility will be a lifesaver. Your patient can receive timely primary medical care to stabilize them as they get transferred to the ER for specialized care in a few minutes.
Cuts Down On Your Medical Bill
Arguably, the cost of healthcare in the United States is among the highest in the world. A reliable study revealed that the average cost of an urgent care facility visit was $184.55 in 2011. In contrast, it averagely cost $969.00 for a visit to the emergency room in 2010. This means that even for a minor medical complication, you are bound to spend significantly more if you go to the ER.
Convenient care facilities come in handy as they save you from going to the ER for minor medical complications; therefore, you eschew the high treatment costs. This means that your family hybrid urgent care cost will be significantly lower than if you chose to only rely on the ER. If you visit a convenient care facility and your medical needs exceed the limits of the urgent care division, the transfer to the emergency room will take minutes at most. Here you will pay the high ER treatment bill only when necessary.
Convenient medical treatment is critical in having the best family urgent care. It’s in your best interest that you rely on convenient care facilities for your medical needs as clearly outlined above. The benefits of having urgent care and emergency room services under one roof to you as a patient cannot be overstated. It’s time to take a new approach to your family’s healthcare.
With the rise of urgent care facilities across the country, people have been able to take a new approach to health care for their families. No longer do you have to wait for an appointment to open up with your general practitioner or be forced to make the decision if your illness or injury is serious enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room. Even the word “emergency room” can seem daunting to some people. It can feel like what you are experiencing is not severe enough to be considered a true emergency, but waiting for care can make your symptoms even worse.
Choosing an urgent medical clinic can let you get the immediate relief or attention for your injury or illness with taking up valuable room in a hospital emergency room. An urgent medical clinic is frequently open after hours, meaning that sudden onset late night illness can be attended to quickly. Don’t let that sudden illness or injury drag on for any longer than it has to. Find your local urgent medical clinic and start feeling better today.