What Is Urgent Care? The Answers That Matter

What Is Urgent Care? The Answers That Matter

Health and Fitness May 10, 2018

If you have ever asked yourself what is urgent care? Then do not worry, you are not alone. As a matter of fact, it is safe to say that while a significant portion of Americans is up to speed on how walk-in clinics and urgent care facilities function, others have little to no clue as to what sort of treatments take place here. Most Americans would be quite surprised to find out how prominent and important an urgent care clinic can be.

An urgent care center is a place where you can be treated for anything ranging from a physical injury to bronchitis to a minor cold. This is important because emergency rooms can often dismiss patients if their case is not serious enough so that they may make more room for severe situations. Here are all of the facts on what is urgent care:

Roughly 60% of all urgent care centers have a wait time of fewer than 15 minutes to see a physician or mid-level provider, and 65% have a physician on-site at all times. This is one of the most important revelations when asking what is urgent care? More often than not, people mistake a physical injury as only treatable by an emergency room.

A recent gathering of data has revealed that just about 80%, four out of five, urgent care centers provide fracture care to patients. So if you break a bone or sprain an ankle you can get properly treated a local urgent care clinic by a talented team of professionals. BE sure to keep this in mind when wondering, what is urgent care?

A physician, or a group of physicians, owns approximately 50% of urgent care centers. Approximately 40% of urgent care centers use electronic prescription ordering systems, with substantially larger proportions using computerized systems for viewing lab and imaging results, collecting patient demographics, billing, condition and procedure coding, and clinical notes.

Almost 70% of all urgent care centers are able to provide intravenous fluids when needed. For those who do not know, intravenous fluids refer to fluids that are inside of the vein already. Again, this is one of many facts when trying to determine what is urgent care?

Urgent care services are now becoming more popular because they see patients quickly. According to a survey by The Urgent Care Association of America, 57% of patients wait 15 minutes or less to be seen, and about 80% of all visits are 60 minutes or less. This type of quick turnaround is why more and more people are starting to wonder, what is urgent care?

Recent data has revealed that nearly 21%, almost one in five, of all urgent centers will have more than 450 patients visit their clinic each week. So this means that there is a current surge when it comes to people visiting clinics like this for help. As this happens, word of mouth and other means will spread the answers to what is urgent care?

More than 66% of all urgent care centers are open before 9:00 AM during the week. A large portion of centers will also open up on Saturday, nearly 45%, and Sunday, nearly 31%. A majority of urgent care centers will stay open until 7 or later during the week at just about 90% with nearly two out of five centers being open until 9:00 PM or potentially later. This is why more people wonder, what is urgent care?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just under half, 48%, of all adult Emergency Room patients were who were not sick enough to be admitted to the hospital sought treatment at the ER because their physicians’ offices were closed. Do not make the mistake of visiting the emergency room if you do not need to especially when all you have to do is ask, what is urgent care?

In Conclusion

Urgent Care Facilities can help people with a bevy of problems. Some of the issues can be minor like colds or a minor infection that can be treated in just a few days. Other problems may be a broken bone or sprained ankle.