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When to Visit an Urgent Care Clinic Over the ER

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 13:24:01 GMT

Accidents and diseases can happen unexpectedly. In these situations, people often struggle with deciding whether to go to an emergency room or an urgent care clinic because they cannot appropriately assess the seriousness of their condition. Therefore, how does one know which facility to visit? This article suggests which facility to visit depending on your injury or disease type.

When to Visit Urgent Care

Most non-life-threatening conditions should be handled at urgent care centers, sometimes called walk-in clinics. These facilities are the best option for most urgent or after-hours treatments since they make better use of the resources and time of the patient. Many are less expensive than a typical hospital emergency department visit, operate seven days a week, and have shorter wait times than the ER. According to the CDC, roughly 14% of kids visited an urgent care facility or retail health clinic once, 8.2% made two trips, and 4.5% made three or more. An urgent care facility can handle the following conditions:

Tonsillitis and cold-like upper respiratory illnesses
Mild burns, strains, or sprains
Mild asthma episodes
Fever, diarrhea, and nausea
Bumps, rashes, and minor wounds that may need sutures

While urgent care facilities cannot replace your main care physician, they are an excellent option if you want medical attention but cannot make an appointment with your physician. The urgent care facility will also transfer you to an emergency room if they believe you require a higher level of care.

When to Visit an Emergency Room

Various medical problems are regarded as emergencies because they may need quick or sophisticated treatments (like surgery) that are only accessible in a hospital environment. It is recommended to go to the emergency department when faced with such a life-threatening situation. Such conditions include:

Chest discomfort and breathing difficulties
Broken bones and dislocated joints
Severe burns and facial lacerations
Stroke symptoms include slurred speech, abrupt numbness or weakness in any part of the body, facial drooping, loss of eyesight, etc.

The seriousness of the medical condition differentiates urgent care from emergency facilities. Make your way to the emergency room if the situation is life-threatening or visit an urgent care clinic if the ailment is a minor sickness or injury. Do you need an urgent care clinic for your minor health issues? Call MedFirst Urgent Care today to schedule an appointment.

3 Common Reasons People Visit An Urgent Care

websites@hibu.com (Hibu Websites) — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:44:18 GMT

It's one thing to go to the emergency room or a doctor's office when you have an ache or pain; it's another thing entirely to visit an urgent care clinic. Urgent care clinics distinguish themselves from doctor's offices and emergency rooms in several ways, though they are also staffed with qualified medical professionals, including many doctors. Urgent care clinics typically do not require appoints beforehand (hence the concept) and you will often spend less time waiting to be seen by a provider at an urgent care clinic than you would at the emergency room. Additionally, it's much more affordable to visit an urgent care clinic compared to an emergency room.

More and more often, people are taking advantage of urgent care clinics. The CDC reported that in 2019 alone, one in four children had at least one urgent care visit in the previous 12 months. But the question is, why are people visiting urgent care clinics? Let's look into some of the most common reasons why people are visiting urgent care clinics .

1. The Cold and Flu

Typically, a cold is simple enough to treat at home, and the same can be said of the flu. But the reality is that symptoms can sometimes get out of hand, and you may need a bit of extra help in treating them. If you find yourself with a cold or flu that has continued over several weeks or results in an increasingly high fever, you may want to visit an urgent care clinic to make sure that something more serious isn't occurring, and to nip your symptoms in the bud.

2. Urinary Tract Infections

UTIs are quite painful, and often somewhat embarrassing. People like visiting an urgent care clinic to have UTIs taken care of quickly, and they need to do so without delay. UTIs can get out of hand before you know it, and you should visit an urgent care clinic in a timely manner if you're suffering from one.

3. Ear Infection

Ear infections are also rather nagging, and similarly to UTIs they can quickly become more complicated. In particular, children should have them treated quickly before they result in high fevers. Urgent care clinics can diagnose and treat ear infections efficiently and properly.

Don't suffer from an illness or injury at home. Come to MedFirst Urgent Care and get the relief you need.

Top Reasons to Take Your Child to Urgent Care

websites@hibu.com (Hibu Websites) — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 17:24:46 GMT

When your child tells you that they don't feel well, as a parent you can feel helpless. If you're not medically trained, a whole host of thoughts about what could possibly be going wrong race through your head in a flurry. Despite knowing that most of the time everything is just fine, it's hard to keep ourselves level-headed when our child is in distress.

Luckily, your local urgent care centers are there to fill the gaps when your pediatrician isn't available. Nearly 14% of children had one urgent care or retail health clinic visit (13.7%), while 8.2% had two visits and 4.5% had three or more visits. Instead of freaking out, look at these common reasons for taking your child to urgent care clinics and know that everything will be okay.

If It's Not an Emergency, Urgent Care Will Be Fine

Although we never want to see our child unwell for longer than we have to, the honest truth is that you should never take your child to an emergency room unless it is truly an emergency. If you don't know how to identify a proper emergency, use the common definition of "life-threatening and possibly fatal" to guide your behavior. This usually means gushing blood, constant vomiting, or interactions with poison/weapons.

Urgent care centers are not only a calmer environment, but are set up to deal with the "less than emergency" types of situations. Broken bones, flu symptoms, and persistent coughs are in their wheelhouse, and your child will be just fine visiting the doctor or nurses at this facility.

Your Pediatrician Isn't Available for Consultation

As a parent, there is perhaps nothing more soothing than being able to call your pediatrician's office and run something by them that you are worried about. From high fevers to odd eating habits, parents just want to be reassured that there is nothing to worry about so that they can go back to their normal lives and raising their children.

When your pediatrician isn't available, the best course of action is to simply wait until the next day for a proper consultation. But if something seems pressing, or your child is in constant pain, then the next best step is to take them to any of the urgent care centers around you. While there's no substitute for your pediatrician in terms of medical history and care, urgent care centers are a great second choice for quality healthcare.

Better Safe than Sorry

Instead of trying to decide whether to take your child to the hospital or urgent care, always err on "better safe than sorry" and call one of your local urgent care centers immediately to decide whether you're fine to take them there or call an ambulance. At worst, you will stay put and dial 9-1-1, at best you will finally know to drive over to the urgent care center or have someone come get them. Be safe rather than sorry and call soon!

Be Safe, Be Healthy, Go to an Urgent Care Center

If you or your child is in need of medical care and it's not life-threatening, consider going to urgent care centers instead of the hospital. MedFirst Urgent Care and other centers like it specialize in helping to treat what's wrong right now so that it doesn't develop into a larger issue down the road or necessitate a hospital visit. If your pediatrician isn't available for consultation and you're not experiencing a truly life-threatening condition, urgent care centers are a much better option than emergency rooms. Instead of taking up space in the latter, be well and stay safe by going to urgent care instead.