Many medical professionals believe that the urgent care model is revolutionizing American health care. But just what is urgent care? Traditionally, urgent care has been associated with walk-in clinics, aka after hours urgent care facilities, the purpose of which is to facilitate ambulatory health care delivery for patients with acute medical issues as alternative to emergency room care. Recently, however, patients find urgent care centers offer far more than acute care services. Many 24 hr urgent care facilities provide annual physicals, blood work, and gynecological exams, as well as many other services.
In the United States, there are more than 8,000 urgent care centers, the majority of which are located in freestanding buildings. However, patients can find urgent care facilities within shopping plazas, as well as in larger office buildings and residential communities . Obtaining urgent care services has made it considerably less difficult in recent years for patients to take care of their health related needs. In certain states, you can find urgent care centers that offer point of care prescription services, making it substantially more convenient for patients to get the medication they need.
Many patients seeing urgent care providers find urgent care to be a much more expedient health care delivery system than are emergency rooms. For example, 57% of patients wait at most 15 minutes to be seen in an urgent care center, according to a recent survey by The Urgent Care Association of America. As well, approximately 80% of urgent care visits are completed in less than an hour. Besides being less time consuming, patients find urgent care visits to be less expensive than trips to the emergency room; The cost of a typical ER visit is about $1,500, whereas the average visit to an urgent care facility is less than $150.
As time goes on, Americans find urgent care options to be viable in regards to providing excellent treatment for both acute and chronic issues, as well as for preventative care. In the next few years we can expect to find urgent care continuing to expand its role within the U.S. health care system. This expansion will save time and money while meting out excellent medicine to patients. Read more blogs like this.