Accessible medical care is something that is hugely important here in the United States. After all, injury and illness happens. Over the course of a single day, up to 25,000 different cases of ankle spraining will occur, more than three quarters of them caused by a simple inward rolling (inversion) of the ankle. In addition to this, up to 60% of the older population will be dealing with at least one chronic medical condition, if not even more than one, by the time that we reach the year of 2030, a year that is now only just over a decade ahead of us. And illnesses are also very common among large swaths of the population, with up to one fifth of all American residents coming down with a case of the flu during any given particularly nasty flu season. At the very least, still up to 5% of the total population will get the flu during this span of time.

But where can one get the medical care that they are in need of? With up to 85% of them open each and every day of the week, the typical urgent care facility has proven to be a valid and viable option for medical treatment of all kinds. In fact, up to three million people now attend such urgent care centers over the course of just one single week and urgent care facilities now employ as many as 20,000 doctors, a number that is only growing and growing as time passes on. After all, there are many reasons to attend an urgent care facility over an emergency room.

For one thing, going to the emergency room is incredibly costly. The average person is likely to pay more than $1,000 for a visit for even the most minor of complaints. For most people, this is an incredibly immense sum of money, and not one that can easily be paid. But it’s not just the cost that prevents people from going to the emergency room, it’s the waiting times as well. As a matter of fact, people are likely to wait for up to one full hour before seeing any kind of medical professional when they go to the emergency room for a less than directly emergent issue (such as a stroke or heart attack). In some cases, the waiting time period might be even higher than this.

Fortunately, the typical urgent care facility can provide a viable alternative to emergency room care, given the fact that the average urgent care facility can handle up to 97% of all cases that come through its doors. In more than 90% of all urgent care locations, in fact, the waiting time will be, on average, no greater than a mere half of an hour. In addition to this, the wait time in more than half of all urgent care locations will not exceed even just 15 minutes on an average basis. Therefore, going to an urgent care facility is likely to save time and money alike.

And when you go to a local urgent care facility, you can get all kinds of medical care. After all, up to 80% of all urgent care facilities even offer diagnosis and care for fracture cases. IVs can often be placed in urgent care settings, x rays taken, and stitches performed. You are likely to even be able to get some types of preventative care at your nearest urgent care facility, such as that of the flu shot. Getting your flu shot is never going to fully protect you from the flu, but it can seriously mitigate the chances of contracting it. When you get your flu shot, you protect not just yourself, but everyone around you as well. And even if you do still end up getting the flu later on, the chances that the flu contracted will be serious enough to threaten your life and land you in the hospital is dramatically reduced. This makes the flu shot even more of a must if you fall into an at risk population. At the end of the day, getting your flu shot might save your life or even someone else’s.