The next time you are thinking about getting emergency room care for a medical condition that requires immediate attention but it is not potentially fatal or similarly serious, you may want to consider visiting a urgent care facility instead.
After all, the Urgent Care Association of America reports that nearly 70% of urgent care facilities only require that patients typically wait 20 minutes at the most. Plus it is decidedly less expensive to receive medical care at an urgent care walk in clinic than it is to receive the same care in an emergency room.
According the Urgent Care Association of America, about 55% of American urgent care centers have been in existence for at least five years. About 20,000 American physicians actively provide immediate care services to patients. With Americans making approximately 160 million trips to urgent care facilities each year, the need for more urgent care doctors is likely to increase.
In addition to the decreased cost and wait time, the hours of many immediate care centers are very accommodating. For example, seven out of ten urgent care facilities in America open their doors by eight o’clock in the morning.
If you have more questions, comments, or suggestions about how to find a urgent care center that is right for you, you may join the forum below.