If you’re looking to get the best medical care out there for a relatively minor medical concern, you should consider your local urgent care clinic. While many people might not think of the average urgent care clinic as the first place to go for a medical issue, an urgent care clinic can actually be the perfect place for many a medical concern. After all, up to 20,000 doctors and other such medical professionals are now employed at urgent care clinics found all throughout the country and the prominence of the urgent care clinic is very much on the rise.
This is a claim that is backed up by the data that has been gathered on the subject. According to data that was gathered back in the year of 2016, there are already well over 7,000 urgent care centers found all throughout the country. And in the years that have passed us by since, this number has only continued to grow and grow and grow. After all, the overall popularity of all urgent care locations is also very much on the rise, as is again supported by the research that has been conducted into the subject.
For instance, it has even been found that up to three million people will attend one urgent care clinic or another over the course of just one single week. In total, this means that more than one quarter of the American population has been to at least one urgent care clinic over the course of the last couple of years, which is again a percentage that will only grow and grow in the years that are ahead of us. There is just no doubting the fact that urgent care clinics are becoming quite popular indeed. But why exactly is this the case? What can the average urgent care clinic offer that makes it so ideal in comparison to other options for medical care and treatment.
For one thing, the healthcare services that your average urgent care clinic can offer are quite a bit more vast and varied than the average person even realizes. The most commonly treated illness at such a walk in clinic will be that of the upper respiratory infection, while wound repair remains the most common procedure performed. However, a great many other forms of medical care can be offered, with more than three quarters of all urgent care locations even able to offer diagnosis for and treatment of fractures. It is for good reason that only around 3% of all cases seen at your typical urgent care clinic will ever need to be transported to and seen at the local emergency room. Conversely, however, it has been found that more than 60% of all emergency room cases could have instead been treated at a local urgent care center, something that would have saved those patients a good deal of money and time alike.
In addition to this, going to an urgent care clinic instead of to an emergency room can save you a truly immense amount of time indeed. Unfortunately, the average emergency room is likely to have quite a long waiting period indeed. As a matter of fact, this waiting period is likely to reach a full hour – and that’s just on average, with many people experiencing much longer wait times than just that. All in all, you can expect to spend a good few hours waiting in an emergency room and waiting even longer once you get a bed, meaning that going to the emergency room for a less than emergent medical issue is certainly less than ideal.
The average urgent care clinic is fortunately a different story. In fact, more than 90% of all urgent care centers have average waiting times that are no greater than a mere half of an hour. And in some cases (for more than half of all urgent care centers, as a matter of fact), the average wait time will actually only be around a full 15 minutes. All in all, this means that going to an urgent care clinic is likely to be a much better choice than going to an emergency room unless a true medical emergency is taking place.
