When you are suddenly sick or injured, your primary goal will likely be to get medical attention as soon as possible. If you don’t have a regular doctor, or your emergency occurs after normal business hours, you may need an alternative option. Many individuals might go to a hospital emergency room, but visiting an urgent care facility could be a better strategy. Getting help at a Pearland urgent care clinic might be faster, less expensive, and more convenient than a trip to a hospital emergency room.
1. Speed of Service
In many cases, going to a Pearland urgent care center can take far less time than a visit to an emergency room would. An emergency room is likely to be filled with a wide variety of people, from individuals with broken limbs to people who have the flu. While your intense earache may require attention, it is probably not an emergency. When you go to an urgent care facility, you are not likely to wait for several hours, as you might be forced to do in a hospital waiting area. The true purpose of an emergency room is to help people with life-threatening emergencies, such as a cardiac arrest. Such a medical emergency takes much longer to handle than a sprained finger, a respiratory infection, or a skin abrasion. If you bypass the emergency room and go to an urgent care clinic instead, you will probably find more staff available to assist you in a timely manner.
2. Lower Cost
If you’ve ever been to a hospital emergency room, you may be familiar with how expensive such a visit can be. Urgent care clinics are typically much less costly than emergency rooms. If you have an injury or an illness that is not potentially fatal, you could save hundreds or thousands of dollars by going to an urgent care center with your problem. According to a 2010 study done in four Midwestern states, the average cost of an emergency visit to treat strep throat was $531, as opposed to $111 for treatment for the same illness in an urgent care facility.
3. Greater Convenience
Most urgent care centers are open after business hours, as well as on weekends and holidays. While this is also true of hospitals, most cities have more urgent care clinics available than they do hospitals. A small city might only have two hospitals, but it could have 10 or 20 urgent care facilities. This means that you will probably not need to travel as far to get to an urgent care clinic as you will to get to a hospital. This could save you time and gas money, and it will also ensure faster treatment overall. Another convenience offered at many urgent care centers is primary health care. This means that once you have received urgent medical attention, you can schedule subsequent visits with a primary health care professional.
Dealing with an unexpected illness or injury can be overwhelming, especially if it happens at an inconvenient time of day. If you go to a hospital, you could wait for hours and pay money that you don’t need to spend. A visit to an urgent care clinic could be your best option when you need medical attention quickly.
