Urgent care is a specialized category of outpatient surgery center in the United States devoted to the quick delivery of care in an urgent medical facility beyond a traditional medical facility staffed by licensed doctors. Urgent care centers differ from traditional medical centers in many ways, such as shorter hours of operation, smaller staff size and less of a focus on diagnosing and treating diseases that are easy to treat and often times can be treated at home or by a family member. Often, urgent care centers will offer the same or better quality of care at a more reasonable price than a hospital, but without the long wait times and extremely high prices that come along with hospital stays. In addition, many urgent care facilities offer financing options for those who are financially limited. Follow this link for more details: https://www.dukecityurgentcare.com/walk-in-medical-services-nm/.
The term "urgent care" actually refers to any of a variety of medical situations where immediate medical attention is needed before a condition is stabilized. Some examples include a baby with a diaper rash that requires immediate intervention, a sprained ankle requiring removal of an injury or more simply, an old child who suffers from teething pain. All these situations require prompt attention, sometimes within just minutes. Typically, when an urgent care center opens it is staffed by an attending primary care physician, an ER doctor, a pediatrician, a cardiologist, a surgeon and a respiratory therapist. These physicians bring the specific expertise to urgent care centers that they have spent their careers training for. In some cases, urgent care centers are staffed by a combination of specialists.
An urgent care clinic will commonly treat patients who are suffering from non-life threatening emergencies. Examples of non-emergency conditions that could be considered urgent are heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, sprains, bruises, bone fractures and more. As you can see, emergency room medicine is quite broad. There are actually some doctors who specialize in non-emergency conditions. Because of this, urgent care centers are often seen as secondary centers to the primary hospital that these patients go to after being seen in the primary doctor's office. This is done so that the patient can be seen in an environment that is as similar (if not more) than the environment that the primary doctor is accustomed to. Visit this link to learn more about having an ideal immergency room.
When patients need to be seen in an urgent care clinic for non-emergency medical problems, they usually do not present life threatening conditions. The reason is that doctors recognize that people suffering from non-emergency medical problems will need additional medical care, but also that a visit to the ER will likely be unnecessary. In this case, the doctor will likely make a referral to a specialist. This is especially true in cases where the patient has no clear path of how he or she will get to the correct destination. Often, it is possible to get to the correct medical care on your own from a nearby Wal-Mart or other location that is properly equipped to handle non-emergency medical problems.
Patients can also be seen in an urgent care clinic for most types of major medical problems if they do not present a health emergency. If you have a sinus infection and feel that a trip to the ER might prove harmful, you should seek treatment in an urgent care clinic. The reason is that most people visiting the ER physicians know that sinus infections can turn into colds or flu within a few days of presenting with symptoms. Even though you may be getting better with time, it is always best to err on the side of caution. The same is true for people with asthma who are not currently experiencing an attack.
Urgent care clinics are also the ideal place to be seen if you have had a physical. Most people seeking treatment in an urgent care clinic are there because they are experiencing pain or discomfort that is affecting their daily lives. This could be the result of an accident or injury. Sometimes, people seek treatment at an ER physician because they are thinking about having surgery, but they also need the advice of a primary care physician to ensure that they are healthy enough to have surgery. A primary care physician can see when you need to have surgery and will help you with preparations for the procedure if you do choose to have it. For people who visit an urgent care clinic for the first time, you may think that this is a waste of time, but chances are good that you will leave the clinic with more questions than answers if you were to go to your primary care physician first. To understand more about this topic, it is wise to check out this post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinic.
