The Benefits of Visiting Urgent Care instead of an Emergency Room
Chest pain, stomach pain, head pain: these are all potentially fatal conditions that should be seen to immediately. If you are feeling any of these symptoms, then you should go to an urgent care right away. If there isn’t one open then you should still go to an emergency room to get checked out. It’s better to be safe than sorry, as they say. Let’s delve a little deeper into the whole urgent care versus emergency room idea.
Quality of Care
Now, going back to the idea of going to an urgent care for chest pain stomach pain or other potentially serious symptoms. You might think that those kinds of critical feelings should only be treated at an emergency room where you are able to be admitted to the hospital if necessary, but you can actually be seen at an urgent care and receive the same quality of care. Urgent care facilities have access to state of the art machines and tools and other equipment just like an emergency room does. Part of the reason for this is that most urgent care clinics are actually owned by one or more physicians so they have a vested interested in making sure that patients receive just as high a level of care as a hospital can give.
Cost Effectiveness
Opting to go to the urgent care over an emergency room even if you have chest pain stomach pain or just a low grade fever could save you a lot of money. They will still accept you if you do not have insurance at all but if you do, then your deductibles will be significantly less than they would if you went to the emergency room. No one wants to spend a lot of money on their health care, so if you are not experiencing a life or death situation, then you’ll save a lot of money just by going to an urgent care facility instead.
Time Waiting
If you haven’t experienced it yourself, you’ve heard about the horrendous emergency room waiting times. People sitting around with broken limbs, high grade fevers or worse and have to just wait until they are called with no idea when that will be. The issue with emergency rooms is that they primarily treat life threatening conditions. This means that if your situation is less severe than someone else’s, they’ll go first even if you arrived before them. An urgent room doesn’t accept life and death situations so it’s based on first come, first served. Some urgent care clinics offer a call ahead option where you can put your name in before you even get there to save you even more time. In any case, you will only end up waiting a max of 15 or 20 minutes at an urgent care whereas you could be at an emergency room for hours.
Life Threatening Situations
If you are unsure if your situation is life threatening, then you should go to an emergency room. When you check in they will let you know the severity of your condition. If you are still unclear, you can ask them if an urgent care would accept you. However, if you first go to an urgent care, thinking your situation is not as dire as it is, you will be transported to a hospital for treatment. So, basically, when in doubt, go to the emergency room. You may end up at an urgent care anyway but it’s better to save time by going straight to the hospital. For example if you have chest pain stomach pain or some other symptom like this, then it could see something as simple as heart burn or it could be the beginnings of a heart attack, it’s hard to tell.
Another great thing about an urgent care is that you could even be sent there for physical therapy or x-rays. It’s a very versatile place. Both facilities are there to serve you and both have quality equipment, workers and sanitation. You will be able to see medical professionals, including doctors at both places. Emergency rooms take everyone, urgent care clinics take only non life threatening situations but are cheaper and faster. That’s it in a nutshell.
