If you or someone in your family is in need of medical care on a Friday night you cannot go to your family pediatrician or physician, and a hospital emergency room is an expensive way to treat a minor illness and injury. As a result, a walk-in urgent care setting is often the best solution.
Whether you are looking for comprehensive specialized pediatric care or a place to get a flu shot, it is important to consider the reliability of the care as well as the convenience and the cost. Finding the way to get the care that you need during any time of the day and night is important. If you want to make sure that you are able to get the best care available, though, you do not always have to go to an office for comprehensive specialized pediatric care or your regular family physician. In fact, many walk-in clinics offer affordable and convenient care that is also reliable.
Consider some of these facts and figures that help people decide where they get the medical care that they need:
- The practice of family medicine is how much of the nation’s health care was delivered two decades ago. As more and more people gained access to health care, however, the industry has had to provide other platforms as well.
- Having access to comprehensive specialized pediatric care is one way that parents can provide the best start for their infants and their children.
- Estimates indicate that 97% of all urgent care centers in the year 2014 were open seven days a week. That same year, 99% of all urgent care centers were open at least four hours a day.
- Breathing difficulties are one indicator that may require a visit to a hospital emergency room, but many other conditions are easily handled at a walk-in health clinic.
- Estimates show that 60% of all urgent care centers have a wait time of less than 15 minutes to see a physician or mid-level provider, and 65% of all urgent care centers have a physician on-site at all times. Shorter wait times mean that patients spend less time being exposed to other patients who are also sick.
- Sore throats, stomach pains, and other minor health conditions are easily handled at a walk-in clinic. Family medical centers also provide flu shots and other vaccines that can help people avoid future illnesses and other more serious conditions.
- The average patient-per-hour ratio for urgent care physicians is 4.5 patients an hour, according to the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine. This ratio will vary, however, based on the severity or acuity of condition of the patient.
- Convenience is an important factor in why so many people select walk-in health clinics. Finding a place where you can get the care that you need any time of the day or night is a major advantage to these clinics.
- An urgent care-treatable case handled in a hospital emergency room costs an average of $2,039. That same case, however, when it is treated in an urgent care facility only costs an average of $226.
- Research indicates that as more and more Americans have access to health care there is a predicted shortage of doctors. In fact, research by the Association of American Medical Colleges indicates that the nation will be short more than 90,000 physicians by the year 2020. By the year 2025, the shortage is expected to grow to 130,000 physicians.
- Estimates show that more than 70% of emergency department visits from patients with consumer-sponsored insurance coverage are for non-emergency conditions or conditions that are easily preventable through simple outpatient care, according to a report from Truven Health Analytics.
Finding THE BEST CARE when you or someone in your family is in need of medical attention often involves making decisions. Deciding between a hospital emergency room, an office that offers comprehensive specialized pediatric care, and a walk in health clinic is a combination of considering cost and convenience, as well as reliable care. Where do you go to make sure that you and your family get the care that you need? If you decide to go to an urgent care clinic you will get the care that you need quickly.
