Although urgent care facilities see millions of patients every week, many health care consumers are unsure as to the services they can expect to be provided. Is there urgent care for kids? What are typical urgent care hours? Are there urgent care locations in my city? How much would it cost to go to a walk in clinic and see a doctor?
There are more than 7,000 urgent care express clinics across America, and they are frequently owned and operated by doctors. The goal of urgent care is to offer a wide range of services — fracture care, sports physicals, well-child checkups — to people of every age at a substantially lower price than emergency rooms. If your child’s physician has recently transitioned to working at a next care urgent care facility, you may want to have a conversation with staff about the range of services offered for babies, children, and teens.
What many parents enjoy about attending an urgent care clinic is the speed of service. Typically, visits to urgent care cost much less than the emergency room, and while the scope of services provided can vary by location, there are some urgent care locations that provide smoking cessation support groups, weight loss management consultations, and dietary supervision for heart care patients.
People who visit next care urgent care locations also typically report that they enjoy the chance to visit a doctor “after hours” or on the weekend. Hours can also vary by location, but doctors understand that accidents and emergencies do not always occur during business hours. Many urgent care locations provide care for patients who have broken or fractured bones, concussions, ear infections, or even “pink eye” and other eye infections.
Urgent care providers encourage potential patients to come in and learn about the variety of health care treatments they can provide. Patients can, of course, continue to attend their primary care physician’s office and can also visit urgent care on an as-needed basis. As long as patients are comfortable and feel that they are receiving great service, they will continue to explore urgent care options.
Having a range of options for care and treatment is encouraged, and as patients across America learn more about next care urgent care, there is stronger demand for more rural clinics and convenient clinics in large urban areas. The idea of walk in, on-demand, speedy and convenient medical service has been around since the late 1970s but has become more popular in the last decade. Finding the best health care at the best price may mean that the number of urgent care facilities could double or triple in the next 20 years.