What You Need to Know about Urgent Care Facilities

All too often we have need of urgent, but non life threatening, medical care. Our first choice is to make a doctor’s appointment. Unfortunately, it may be too late by the time a doctor is able to see us. With no other options left, we are forced to head to the emergency room. However, emergency rooms are designed to handle life threatening emergencies, thus emergency room numbers can swell and those of us with non life threatening problems often have to wait hours to be seen by a medical professional.

Until recently, the emergency room was the only option is this situation. However, now there is a new choice: urgent care facilities. Urgent care facilities are designed to offer basic medical care for urgent, non life threatening conditions on a walk in basis. Unlike emergency rooms, the wait time is often very short. In fact, 80% of urgent care patients wait 15 minutes or less for treatment. They are staffed with medical professionals, and can perform many of the services that a doctor or hospital can, including writing drug prescriptions. Some urgent care facilities even have pharmacies.

Most urgent care facilities are free standing buildings, while some can be found in medical plazas or retail centers. Roughly 85% of urgent care facilities in the United States are found in suburban areas. Check the hours of the urgent care facility nearest you, as some centers offer after hours urgent care or even 24 hr urgent care.

Next time you have an urgent, but non life threatening, medical condition, forget about join the emergency room numbers, and head to the urgent care center nearest you. To find out more about urgent care facilities, including where the center nearest you is located, search online.
For more information see this: www.immediateclinic.com