The benefits of urgent care centers are many, especially when you compare them with an emergency room visit. For instance, emergency room visits often take an incredible amount of time even for what ends up being a relatively minor medical concern. The average patient in any given emergency room is likely to spend at least an hour in the waiting room before receiving care. In addition to this, waiting to see a doctor and actually get treatment can take even longer.
One of the benefits of urgent care locations is the ability to avoid this. After all, the typical urgent care center will only have a wait time of just a mere half of an hour, something that has been able to hold true in up to 90% of all urgent care locations throughout this country. And more than half of all such medical clinics and walk in clinics are actually even able to boast average wait times of a mere 15 minutes or so. The average urgent care patient is able to get in, be treated, and be sent on their way all within the span of just one hour, showing how clearly this is one of the many benefits of urgent care locations found throughout the United States.
Of course, there are many other benefits of urgent care centers in this country. For one thing, urgent care centers are able to provide widely comprehensive care. As a matter of fact, only a scant 3% or so of all patients seen at urgent care centers must later be sent to a hospital. In opposition to this, however, more than 65% of all emergency room cases could have been treated in an urgent care center instead, something that likely would have saved those patients in question a great deal of time and money alike.
Your local urgent care center is likely able to treat more serious medical concerns than you currently realize. In fact, more than three quarters of all urgent care locations can both diagnose and treat fractures. In addition to this, IV fluids can be administered at around 70% of all urgent care locations. X rays can be given for a variety of different purposes and sometimes even stitches can be performed. Though true medical emergencies should be and treated by an emergency medical physician in your local emergency room, more common complaints can easily be dealt with at urgent care centers, yet another benefit of urgent care, of which we have already seen to be many.
Urgent care benefits are not just related to the above, however. Instead, urgent care benefits continue to extend much further. After all, one of the main urgent care benefits is the hours that urgent care centers usually keep. In fact, many urgent care centers are open earlier in the morning and later into the evening than many average doctors offices, one of the main urgent care benefits. In some cases, these urgent care benefits are even more pronounced, as the urgent care center in question will be open 24/7, though this is not quite as common.
Urgent care benefits can also be seen in the total cost of urgent care treatments. While they may not be cheap – especially for someone who does not have insurance – they will certainly be less expensive than an emergency room visit. Unfortunately, the typical emergency room visit is actually likely to cost at least $1,000 – if not even more than that. For those who are without health insurance, the cost of an ER trip can be all but completely insurmountable. Fortunately, one of the urgent care benefits that people most love is that costs are lower, even if they are not necessarily what could be considered to be wholly inexpensive (at least in some cases, though likely not in all).
Because of these many urgent care benefits to be had, more and more people are visiting various urgent care centers than ever before. In fact, more than one quarter of the population has visited at least one urgent care center at least one time over the course of the last two or so years.
