Urgent care clinics have become staples in communities all throughout the United States. For a great many people, up to three million throughout the span of just one week, urgent care clinics have become a go to. In fact, they now staff more than 20,000 doctors and even more additional medical professionals. By the time that we had reached the year of 2016, there were already more than 7,000 urgent care locations found from one cost to the next – and everywhere in between to boot. Ultimately, these numbers have also only continued to grow and grow, of this there is no doubt.
But why, exactly, are urgent care clinics so widespread and popular just about everywhere you look here in the United States? For one thing, urgent care clinics are open each and every day of the week – at least in up to 85% of cases. This means that you can go to such a medical clinic when your normal doctor’s office is closed. For many people, urgent care clinics provide an effective way to avoid the emergency room.
And avoiding the emergency room is certainly a good idea. After all, the typical emergency room visit has now skyrocketed to reach more than $1,000 in total cost. In some cases, the cost will even be much higher than this already. In addition to this, waiting at the emergency room for a less than emergent medical condition is something that will leave you with tons of lost time. On average, you can expect to wait an hour in the average emergency room waiting room. In addition to this, you will still need to spend time waiting for testing, to see a doctor, and even to be discharged. All of this can leave you waiting hours on end for even a relatively minor medical issue.
But urgent care clinics provide a more than viable alternative, able to treat more than 95% of all patients who come their way. In fact, the vast majority (around 80%, to be just a bit more specific) of all urgent care centers even provide care for fractures, though more serious fracture cases will still need to be seen at a local hospital. For many people, seeking out fracture care at an urgent care clinic proves to be a much better option in comparison to seeking out fracture care in an emergency room setting, especially if there is question over whether a bone is fractured or merely sprained. After all, up to 25,000 ankle sprains occur throughout the course of just one day here in the United States.
Occupational health hazards can also lead to the injuries that are treated in urgent care clinics. And there is no doubt about it that sports injuries are also very much commonplace. For many people, urgent care clinics become the first destinations when they are injured in a way that is not life threatening. Ultimately, urgent care clinics are likely to be able to treat the issue much more quickly than an urgent care center even would in the first place, making it a worthwhile place to go in the event of an injury.
And it’s not just immediate medical help that is provided by many an urgent care location. In addition to this urgent medical help, many urgent care clinics provide various forms of preventative care as well. STD testing is one such form of this care. After all, knowing your STD status is highly important not just for your own health, but for the health of any partners you might have as well. Fortunately, STD testing has become more readily accessible than ever before, something that allows this status to be easily known and shared. You don’t even need to make an appointment in many cases, able to simply just walk into one of the many urgent care clinics that are likely to be in your area.
For a great many people, urgent care clinics serve a hugely valuable role – of this, there is simply no doubt. At the end of the day, the importance of these urgent care clinics is only likely to keep growing in the present as well as in the future ahead of us.
