It happened on a Sunday night as I pointed the tip of a knife into an avocado attempting to extricate the pit. The fruit slipped and the knife went through my hand severing an artery.
The thought of calling 911 or spending hours in an emergency room scared me almost as much as the uncontrollable bleeding. A kind and wise neighbor took me to a nearby urgent care center where I was seen immediately.
I was home within a half hour, having had stitches, a tetanus shot, and antibiotics. All this for only a $40 insurance co-pay – and without the hassle of the ER.
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Like many, I had wrongly regarded these free-standing urgent care centers as facilities mainly for the uninsured. Not so, says Lou Ellen Horwitz, executive director of the Urgent Care Association of America.
The number of urgent care centers – now nearing 10,000 nationwide – has skyrocketed in recent years and more than half the patients using them have insurance.
One driving force behind the trend is that many insurance companies now refuse to pay for ER visits if they involve “non-life-threatening” situations.
Horwitz tells Newsmax Health: “The concept is to keep you out of the emergency room for non-emergency care. If life or limb is at stake, that’s the time to visit the ER.”
Besides the convenience factor, money is a big driving factor behind the popularity of urgent care. Typically, urgent care centers are one-fifth as expensive as ERs. Also, unlike most hospitals and doctors’ officers, the centers have price transparency.
“Many centers post their prices right on their websites,” says Horwitz.
Glen Stream, M.D., president of the American Association of Family Physicians, warns that patients who discard their family doctor may end of getting inferior care. “If a patient only relies on urgent care facilities, no one really gets to know them,” he tells Newsmax Health. “One of the best predictors of health outcomes is having a regular source of care where you can go for acute and chronic illnesses and develop a relationship with a doctor.”
Dr. Stream, a family doctor in Spokane, Wash., concedes that the urgent care market has put pressure on primary care doctors to provide more convenient care themselves. And he, like many others, has become affiliated with a local urgent care center, which allows him crucial and quick access his patients’ records.
“Ideally, your doctor and urgent care facility should have an electronic information exchange so that crucial information is available to both parties,” he says.
“If one of my patients lands up at the urgent care center, that physician has access to his or her medical information and when I return to the office, I can have documentation of their diagnosis and can follow up,” he says.
Where Should You Go?
If you think you have a serious condition – stroke, heart attack, or major trauma – go straight to the ER.
The ER is the best place to treat these critical conditions:
· Chest pain
· Difficulty breathing
· Loss of consciousness
· Sudden loss of vision
· Major traumatic injury
An urgent care center can better treat:
· Minor burns, cuts, or injuries such as sprains and strains
· Minor bone fractures
· Coughs, sore throats, fever, flu, vomiting
· Ear infections
· Non-life threatening allergic reactions and mild asthma attacks
The complete version of this article first appeared in Health Radar. To read more, CLICK HERE.
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