For those who are without medical insurance or who work incredibly busy schedules, finding the time or the ability to visit a general care practitioner can prove to be hugely difficult – if not entirely possible. In many of these cases, such people find themselves with no option but to go to an emergency room to seek any kind of medical treatment, even if it is medical treatment for a less than serious or even minor condition. Unfortunately, the emergency room can be hugely expensive, costing easily more than one thousand dollars for a single visit. As this is all to often the case, many people simply choose not to seek out medical care and treatment – even if it is necessary for their health and safety.

Urgent care centers have provided a viable alternative for medical care, providing an easily accessible place to go for treatment, particularly for those who are without health insurance and a primary care practitioner. As the typical urgent care bill is not much higher than two hundred dollars even without medical insurance, it is a much more financially accessible option for many. It is also ideal for those who are not able to take off work to schedule a doctor’s appointment at a typical doctor’s office. As more than eighty percent of all urgent care clinics in the United States are open every single day of the week, they have better hours for the person with a busy life. They are also typically open earlier in the morning and later in the evening than a traditional doctor’s office, meaning that many people are able to go in after work hours without needing to take time off of work, which may not be an option for many reasons. Because of these reasons as well as others, urgent care locations are becoming more popular than ever, seeing a total of around three million patients across the country every single week and employing around twenty thousand doctors.

Medical care clinics like urgent care are also able to treat a wide variety of conditions. Though true medical emergencies should still go straight to the nearest emergency room, the vast majority of cases – as many as sixty five percent of them – would have been able to be treated in a walk in clinic location instead for a fraction of both the price and the wait time (an emergency room often has a wait time of at least an hour – and sometimes even longer).

The conditions that are seen in an urgent care clinic range from the minor – such as the common cold, of which there are at least one billion cases of in the United States every single year – to the more severe, such as a fracture. Though a fracture may seem like too serious of an injury to be treated in a walk in medical clinic, this is often not the case. In fact, as much as eighty percent of all urgent care clinics have the capabilities to provide fracture diagnosis and care. Other common conditions seen in an urgent care location include urinary tract infections (commonly known as UTIs) – of which there are more than eight million cases seen and diagnosed by doctors and medical professionals in just one year – and poison ivy, which affects up to eighty five percent of people who come into contact with it, causing what is sometimes (but not necessarily frequently) a severe allergic reaction.

There are many reasons to seek out treatment at an urgent care center or a walk in clinic. For one, they employ qualified doctors all across the United States and are growing ever popular. It is also true that they are incredibly more cost and time effective alike when compared to a typical visit to an emergency room. They can also treat a wide variety of illnesses and injuries, from the very minor to the much more severe. In fact, the vast majority of walk in clinics even have the proper tools and training to diagnose and treat moderate to serious injuries such as fractured bones.