In the past, a trip to the emergency room was the only way to receive immediate medical attention if your family physician was unavailable. The delays and expenses of a visit to the emergency room were nothing short of staggering, especially if you didn’t have insurance. Now there is an alternative! Local walk-in clinics, like PrimeCare in Port Orange, and urgent care centers are now more prevalent than ever. Now the only time it’s absolutely necessary to visit an emergency room is if you have a life-threatening injury or illness. Quicker and less expensive medical care is becoming increasingly more available with each year that passes.
What is Urgent? – Urgent is classified as non-life-threatening conditions requiring medical attention in the next 24 hours. If you just can’t wait until your primary health care physician is available, visiting a walk-in clinic would be a suitable alternative (Although you wouldn’t want to wait if you think your condition can worsen in the interim). If your condition is life-threatening, like major trauma or massive bleeding, then you must go to the emergency room. Walk-in clinics and urgent care centers typically do not require appointments. They also often have extended evening hours beyond the typical normal family physician, making a local walk-in clinic an excellent option for evening, weekend and holiday medical problems.
The Savings! – Not only are the wait times hefty at an emergency room, so are the expenses! Recent expert studies compared the cost of visiting an urgent care center against visiting the emergency room for nine common medical issues. The studies found that the treatments for all nine medical conditions were significantly less expensive if you were treated at a local walk-in instead of the hospital. Not only are the base costs lower but so are the copays! Many insurance providers offer lower copays to those who get treated at a local walk-in instead of the ER. If your injury or illness isn’t severe enough to be classified as life-threatening, you could save hundreds if not thousands of dollars by avoiding the emergency room.
An urgent care center can handle just about anything short of life-threatening, so consider your options when your primary physician is unavailable. You don’t have to sacrifice your quality of care either because most urgent care physicians have plenty of ER experience. The advantages of a local walk-in clinic are outstanding. So before you rush to an emergency room for a non-emergency service, think about the dramatically lower costs of visiting a local walk-in clinic, like PrimeCare in Port Orange, first! Walk into convenience; avoid outrageous delay, increase savings and return to better health!
