The terms “urgent treatment center” and “urgent care facility” are usually used interchangeably. What this term means is a clinic where you can go if you’re injured or ill and don’t want to go to an emergency room. Such facilities are becoming popular options, but some people aren’t sure about the best time to visit one.
Instacare and similar brands are setting up urgent treatment centers, and it’s likely one is opening near you. However, it makes sense to know what situations are appropriate for visiting one and when you should look into another option. We’ll talk about that in detail right now.
What Exactly is an Urgent Treatment Center?
To make this as simple as possible, it would be accurate to say that an urgent treatment center or urgent care facility is a place you might go if you have a medical condition that is serious but that you don’t feel is life-threatening. If you just chopped your hand off in a DIY disaster, there’s really no other logical option than to go to an emergency room. However, if you have an infected finger that needs to be lanced and drained, an urgent treatment center makes sense in that kind of situation.
Urgent treatment centers usually have a limited number of doctors and other staff members. They also typically have the ability to implement specific kinds of medical testing and treatment but not others. You will probably be able to get an X-ray at an urgent treatment facility, for instance, but you would not be able to get an MRI. You would need a hospital for that.
Do You Need to Go to an Emergency Room?
Deciding whether or not you need to go to an emergency room is probably the first question you should ask yourself if you’re considering an urgent care center. The reason why some people don’t like going to emergency rooms is that if you have most kinds of health insurance in America today, it will cost you significantly more to go to an emergency room than it would to pay for a stop at an urgent care center.
Obviously, the cost shouldn’t be the only factor when you’re thinking about your health, but the reality is that some individuals would much rather go to a more inexpensive option. If you think you’ve sprained your ankle or something along those lines, getting a doctor to take a look at it at an urgent treatment center will get you the same level of care, and the price tag should be a lot lower.
This is an Important Decision
This is not a decision you should take lightly. If there is a chance that the illness you’ve contracted or injury you have sustained is a threat to your life, then you must go to an emergency room. If you feel that you need medical attention right away but don’t believe your life to be in danger, that’s when an urgent care facility can be a suitable option.
