Urgent Care, Convenience Care and Emergency Care 3 Options and 3 Tips

more and more urgent care centers are popping up in more communities, which makes the decision between visiting an urgent care facility over an emergency room harder than ever. A simple internet search can return possible reasons to visit one over another, but if your urgent care is a convenience care clinic, meaning they provide urgent care along with emergency care, then the decision gets even harder. More than one quarter of patients in the U.S. have visited an Urgent care facility in the last two years because of their increasing popularity. The number of urgent care centers in the U.S. rose by 650 in just one year, from more than 6,000 in 2015 to more than 7,000 in 2016. Aside from the typical urgent care needs or emergency needs, consider the things below before visiting an emergency room, urgent care clinic or convenience care clinic in your area.

Connections
When making the choice to go to 24 hour walk in clinic not only are you looking for effective treatment options for your conditions, but you also want to make sure that this treatment can be relayed to your primary doctor. Whether dealing with severe health problems, breathing difficulties, chest pain, broken bones or deep cuts you want to make sure that all treatment is either printed so you can take when you follow up with your doctor or sent to your doctor for proper follow up. Find out before treatment so that you know what needs to be done after the visit. If printed information needs to be obtained, such as x-ray discs, be sure to get those before leaving. If records can be sent to your doctor electronically be sure to leave your doctors information with them before or after treatment.

Care Received

Most urgent care centers are staffed with doctors who are knowledgeable in a wide variety of issues. This includes urgent matters related to severe health problems, and non urgent matters such sick kiddos. Check the center you plan to attend to see who staffs the center. Finding a convenience care center which offers urgent care for matters of urgency as well as emergency care for sever health problems, broken bones and deep cuts can ensure that no matter which situation you are dealing with you will get proper care within a convenient time frame.

Reputation

Everyone has a story, but some are more scary than others. No matter what urgent care facility you decide to go to chances are someone has had a good experience with it and someone has had a bad experience with it. There is no possible way to please everyone, and it’s important to remember that people will post a bad review faster than they will take the time to post a positive one. Bear this in mind when searching reviews and reputations of the clinic of your choice. If more and more people are experiencing problems with the same thing, such as rude nurses, doctors who treat you like a number rather a patient, insanely long wait times, and other issues, it might be best to rethink your decision on where to get care. As always if the condition revolves around severe health problems, your main focus should be on immediate care above everything else, but for less severe issues consider the clinics reputation.


Only a small number of visitors to urgent care clinics, around 3%, are transported to emergency rooms for severe health problems or life threatening issues, meaning majority of urgent care clinics see patients needing urgent care not emergency care. Knowing which clinic to go to helps speed up the process and avoid necessary delays, but from the sounds of it majority of people know where to go. Therefore considering these tips can help save time, frustration and get you the care you need and the care that you want in the shortest amount of time possible. Using the appropriate services for the needs of you and your loved ones are important, but choosing the best option based on research and these tips can help you feel more confident no matter what type of situation you are dealing with.