First introduced in the 1970’s, urgent care clinics have evolved to cater to patients in need of most any kind of medical attention. With nearly 9,000 centers across the country and growing, urgent care in the United States is witnessing booming business.
Once just facilities for addressing the immediate patient needs not serious enough for an ER visit, urgent care clinics now offer a much wider range of treatment. With nearly half of all US patients seeking unscheduled medical treatment from urgent care outpatient services, the industry accounts for an annual revenue of $14 billion. This monumental growth over the past 40 years has encouraged urgent care locations to offer services once reserved only for traditional inpatient offices and clinics.
Those without life threatening injuries visiting hospital ERs take priority second to those in more dire need. This could lead to extensive wait times, depending the number of patients and their individual situations. Urgent care visitors, however, all have less pressing medical needs and typically visit for no more than 20 minutes. This model makes for much shorter visits and much happier patients.
Patients are gravitating to urgent care in droves for more reasons than quick visits and short waiting time. Many urgent care locations conveniently offer point of care medication distribution. Depending on state law, doctors can dispense the medication prescribed to their patients immediately, rather than having them make a separate visit to a pharmacist.
Offering unscheduled medical care services, urgent care in our country has evolved to offer after hours urgent care and even urgent care dental services. The appeal for urgent care has mainly to do with speed and time. Averaging 80% cheaper than traditional ER visits, the explosion in urgent care popularity is easy to understand. Visit here for more: doctorsexpressnewark.com
