Urgent care Clinics: Pros and Cons

There is not much clarity in people when it comes to having healthcare services. In the past few years, innovative and fast healthcare services have been introduced to people for providing better healthcare. There is much hype about walk-in clinics and their role and services. If you are baffled about when to go to urgent clinics or when not to go, this blog is here to help you with useful information about urgent care clinics in NYC.

In this blog, we are going to shed some light on the subject of Urgent care clinics and what are their pros and cons. 
Let’s first learn about the urgent care clinic 

Urgent clinics employ professional medical specialists to provide urgent medical care services to people. They are also known as Walk-in clinics because you can visit these clinics when you need urgent care without a prior appointment. 

Pros for Urgent Care Clinics

• In urgent care clinics, common illnesses and injuries are treated without the need for scheduling appointments. You don’t need to have an appointment to visit qualified medical experts in an urgent clinic.
• Urgent clinics offer flexible hours, even people with busy schedules and life can find time to visit and have treatment for common and non-emergency diseases.
• People suffering from common illnesses and mild to moderate injuries can get treatment from urgent clinics.
• Unlike other clinics, there is no need to stand in queue for long hours. In urgent care clinics, you have lesser waiting time as compared to emergency rooms.
• Anyone can go and get the treatment on a walk-in basis.
• Urgent care clinics are open 365 days and at odd hours.

Cons for Urgent Care Clinics

•  They are not the places to go for life-threatening or critical medical conditions.
• Medical records of patients are not available.
• You can only go to urgent care doctors for treating common and minor medical conditions or minor injuries.
• There may not be the same medical doctor to treat you every time you visit the clinic.

Now that you are aware of the pros and cons of urgent care clinics in NYC, this will help you decide when to visit urgent care clinics or when not to.

When To Visit Urgent Care Clinics?

In the past, when people had suffered from illnesses and diseases, they had to visit emergency rooms. And then, there is a long queue and waiting time. But we are fortunate that today our life is much easier than before. Urgent care clinics are in place to give treatment to people promptly when they are suffering from non-life-threatening diseases.

The healthcare sector is now seeing good growth in the number of walk-in care centers across the world. More than 15000 urgent care clinics are expected to be opening by 2020. People from NY are now visiting urgent care clinics more than often. They are an important healthcare resource where people can go when their primary care doctor is not available or hospitals are closed.

Unlike other clinics and hospitals, they don’t ask for appointments. You can visit walk-in clinics on weekends, holidays as they are open 24*7.

When not to go to walk-in clinics?

People with life-threating diseases such as heart stroke, heart attack, or any serious medical condition should never visit walk-in clinics. These conditions require a visit to emergency rooms. Walk-in clinics are not the place to go for emergency conditions. Urgent care centers offer medical care services for minor health problems or diseases that need urgent care but are not life-threatening.

Here are the most common medical necessities that an urgent care clinic can provide:

Non-life threatening diseases: NY urgent care clinics have certified and licensed healthcare experts to treat minor injuries and diseases.

Minor physical injuries: Cuts that don’t involve much blood but might need stitches, lacerations, sprains,  minor burns, minor broken bones, and fractures. The urgent care clinic house trained medical doctors to treat these conditions.

Vaccinations: If you are planning an international trip, you need to have seasonal flu vaccines and regional specific vaccines to stay healthy and disease-free through your travel journey. They provide vaccinations but this might require you to book an appointment beforehand.

If you are looking for urgent care within 24 hours for the following problem, you can turn to walk-in clinics.

• Moderate back problems 
• Sprains and strains
• Breathing problems
• Diagnostic services, (X-rays and laboratory tests)
• Fever or flu
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Severe sore throat or cough
• Skin rashes, skin infections, and eye irritations.
• Urinary tract infections

There are medical conditions that need urgent medical care by healthcare experts other than your primary doctor. Urgent clinics are open 24*7 and usually require no appointment.

What Has Led To An Exponential Growth Of Urgent Care Clinics?

Over the past few years, the urgent care industry has been experiencing exponential growth in the United States and throughout the world. This has happened because more and more patients started to seek on-demand care for non-life threatening conditions. Well, much of urgent care Clinic growth is fueled by diversifying patients who need immediate access to on-demand and specialized medical care. 

Urgent care facilities play an important role in providing patients with a wide range of care services who failed to see their primary care doctors for various reasons. In 2017, the total number of urgent care centers in the United States was 8,125 which increased by eight percent to 8,774 in 2018. 

Urgent care clinics in NY are continuously booming for various good reasons - meeting public demand and reducing costs and convenience. 

If you want to know what has led the number of  to increase exponentially, you’re on the right page. In this post, we will explain the things that are behind the growth of urgent care centers. 

Urgent care clinics are meeting the public demand - When it comes to seeking medical care, patients want quick services and don’t want to wait in long queues outside the doctor's clinic. With walk-in appointments and longer hours, these clinics are able to meet public demands that traditional doctor’s offices failed to offer. 

Apart from this, urgent care facilities also offer other benefits such as their ground-floor locations that offer easier access to patients and same-day appointment with their online calendar program. 

Reduced cost of healthcare services - By visiting this clinic, you can save a lot of your money as compared to emergency rooms, which may get heavy on your pocket. Reduced cost of healthcare services is another reason why more and more people are choosing this type of healthcare facility.

Well, the cost of healthcare services at these healthcare centers are similar to primary care physician’s clinics but much less than emergency rooms. Also, as compared to primary care doctor’s clinics, urgent care Clinic offer more services with walk-in appointments. 

What Urgent Care Expects From Patients Before A Visit?

For health-related problems, doctors are your safest bet. Doctors are proficient and are responsible to help you. And as a matter of fact, no two health problems are the same and so are their treatment options.

So, here are the things that help you understand the responsibility of emergency and urgent care clinics.   

How emergency and urgent care are different from each other?

An emergency room offers treatment for the following problems:

• Gunshot or deep knife wounds
• Fever in infants younger than 3 months.
• Convulsions and Seizures
• Pregnancy Complications
• Moderate to severe burns
• Poisoning
• Compound Fractures
• Severe pain

Compared to this, urgent healthcare includes managing acute conditions that do not pose a major health risk. Visit urgent healthcare clinics if you suffer from the following types of conditions:

• Accidents and falls
• Severe Rashes
• Vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration
• Breathing problems such as asthma attacks
• Minor fractures or breaks
• Cuts that require stitching
• Severe throat infections

What are the qualities of an urgent care clinic?
Diagnostic Instruments - All urgent care clinics are equipped with some diagnostic instruments to assess patient conditions. These include point of care equipment, such as:

• Blood Glucose Monitors
• Blood Sample analysis equipment
• Urine Analysis Equipment
• Home Pregnancy Tests

Treatment Instruments - Urgent care centers are always stocked with an ample supply of medical instruments that can help treat minor injuries.

• Syringes
• Disinfectants
• Bandages
• Stitches

Over the Counter Medications

Accept Walk-in Patients -
Urgent care centers provide ambulatory services, sometimes to the same degree as Emergency rooms. You should not have to make an appointment to go to an urgent care center. The demand of urgent care requires urgent care centers to accept walk-in patients during business hours.

Have multiple examination rooms -
Urgent care clinics should have multiple examination rooms to extend services to as many people as possible. Urgent care centers are well aware of this requirement and the best clinics make sure they comply with this requirement.

Urgent care clinics allow you to get the much-needed treatment without having to wait in long queues or book a prior appointment.

Walk-In Clinic: Things to expect while visiting

Your primary healthcare physician is too busy to give you an appointment and your health concern isn’t serious enough for an emergency room. So, you’re planning to visit a walk-in-clinic for the first time, it alright! We can understand that the first time can bring an intimidating experience for most people, especially if someone is seriously ill or injured. Therefore, in this post, we will explain what to expect during your first visit to a walk-in-clinic.

If you know what to expect while visiting a walk-in-clinic for the first time, you can calm your nerves and solve all the problems that come on your way.

Here are some of the things you may expect when visiting a walk-in clinic for the first time. 

Minimum waiting time - Most people when they hear walk-in-Clinic assume that they don’t have to wait to see a physician. Please remember, the doctors at a walk-in clinic take enough time to check their patients and provide them quality care, so you may expect some waiting. 

However, the wait time at an urgent care clinic, also referred to as walk-in-clinic is not more than 30 minutes, which is comparatively shorter than waiting at the doctor’s office or emergency room. 

High-quality care and services - Of course, you can’t get treated for life-threatening problems at walk-in-Clinic, but when it comes to treating minor injuries or illnesses, they offer fantastic care. Whether you have flu symptoms, deep cut or muscle strain, you can get it treated at a walk-in-clinic. 

Friendly atmosphere - We all know that emergency rooms are usually packed with several critical cases on a regular basis. This means the entire staff and the doctors are usually under stress to treat patients with severe conditions as soon as possible. 

On the contrary, urgent care clinics offer relaxed environment and friendly staff, making it easier for children and nervous patients to get treated. 

Diagnosis & treatment - Well, most of the urgent care clinics offer testing facilities. This means you can get your non-life threatening illnesses or injuries diagnosed at walk-in-clinic and accordingly get the suitable treatment plan.

The conclusion 

Hopefully, after reading this post, now you know what to expect at your first visit to a walk-in-clinic. Hence, you can confidently get your illness diagnosed or treated at the center itself. 

When Is The Right Time To Visit An Urgent Care Center?

The body’s immune system can become weak because of a lot of factors. Injuries and ailments can lessen your body’s immunity. Imagine a situation in which you are wearing your favorite 5’’ heels, you step out of the house to party with your friends, and trip over on the stairs. You get injured badly and need to seek immediate medical attention. It’s late and all general physicians have shut. Where will you go in such a situation? Your best bet in such a situation is to visit Urgent Care Doctors.

It is important that you understand what an urgent care center is and what injuries can be treated. Knowing about a source can help you in relieving stress and save you some money as well.

What can be treated? 
A variety of illnesses and ailments can be treated by visiting urgent care centers and consulting
Urgent Care Doctors. Some symptoms that can be evaluated and treated using urgent care facilities are:

• Minor cuts & burns
• Lacerations
• Ear pain
• Rashes
• Dehydration
• Cough
• Cold
• Flu
• Wounds
• Infections
• Fractures and pains

Why choose urgent care? 
In case you require urgent care medical facilities to treat infections and allergies, you must visit an urgent care center. Urgent care centers are open 24*7 to render medical services to patients. Urgent care centers will provide you comprehensive medical attention on the spot. The doctors at urgent care centers are experienced and qualified and will prescribe you the best possible medical services.

Making an informed decisionIf you are not sure about visiting an urgent care center or are skeptical about where should you seek urgent care medication, you can call your doctor’s office and ask for suggestions. When you have to treat some serious ailments, consulting Urgent Care Doctors in NYC is your best bet.

Facts about Urgent Care Clinics that you must know!!

Anything related to health care must be considered in priority. Surely, convenience is an important aspect to consider for getting the right treatment in the least possible time. But as the population is growing, the rate of patients visiting hospitals and healthcare centers is also increasing at a fast rate. Thus, it won't be convenient to book same-day appointments and seek quality treatment conveniently at hospitals and primary care healthcare centers. And thus the concept of urgent care clinics came into existence.    

Here are facts related to Urgent Care Clinics that help you understand the role of urgent clinics in a better manner.

These are not retail clinics - First and most important that you must know about Urgent Care Clinics is that these are not like retail stores. The basic role of these clinics is to treat uncomplicated minor illnesses and provide preventive services for problems like sore throat/Strep Throat, Sinus Infection, Cough/Fever, Sinusitis, Urinary Tract Infection, Ear Ache/Blockage, Seasonal Allergies, Asthma, Skin Condition, Nausea/Vomiting/Diarrhea, Joint Pain, Nasal Congestion, Pink Eye/Styes, Back Pain, Headache/Migraine, Deer Tick Bite, Allergic Reaction, Wart Treatment and many more. They focus on treating injuries or illnesses that require immediate care but should not require an emergency room (ER) visits.

Reduce unnecessary ER visits - No matter whether it is a case of urgency or emergency, people run to emergency centers if they do not have an appointment or can get it done at their primary care physician’s clinic. This thing sooner or later increases the traffic of patients to emergency rooms. Urgent care clinics mean patients no longer have to run to the ER to get the treatment for a sore throat or skin infection.

Get prescription for most medicine - The doctors and physicians can prescribe most medicines, but not for all. Doctors are able to prescribe medications like antibiotics, allergy and asthma medications, short-term pain medications, one-time maintenance medications, antiviral medications, and medications for stomach conditions. They will not be able to prescribe refills, narcotics, long-term pain medications, or anti-anxiety medications.

We hope these facts about Urgent Care Clinics have helped you understand the significance of it.