Our health is something we all want to take care of. We hear about it all the time: family health care plans, insurance for family care, health clinics for women, children, families but when and how should we visit a healthcare provider?
When something happens, most of us would visit urgent care facilities or an emergency walk in clinic. However, studies like the one conducted by the Urgent Care Association of America show concerning statistics such as, since 2011 until now, on average, urgent care centers see 342 patients a week. On one hand, these emergency centers are cycling through many people and helping a great number of needs. On the other hand, what kind of personal care can one receive when all a doctor can think about, is how many people are in the waiting room? Speaking of the waiting room, did you know that from 2003 to 2009 the average waiting time for patients in an ER rose from 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes? Many of us have waited even longer than that!
I know insurance can be an issue and most ER’s will take most insurances while many primary care doctors are more limited. However, there are many primary care physicians that take government insurance for family care and individual as well as private insurances. All you need to do is to call your particular insurance company and ask to do a primary care physician search to find out which ones accept your insurance. Also, getting a referral from a friend makes finding a primary care doctor much easier. You could find out which clinics accept your insurance for family care and and then search for primary care physician reviews of the clinic in question. Vice versa, if you have a doctor you love, do not hesitate to share them with your friends and family. Everyone needs a good doctor they can visit without fear of spending the $1,318 that the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey found to be the average expense of someone who visited an ER one or more times in 2009, possibly due to unnecessary tests that can sometimes be ordered in an ER in an effort to speed things up.
Lastly, many times, the doctors in an urgent care are simply general practitioners and if they seem to think you need to see a specialist may first refer you to a primary care doctor who will then give you the referral to see a specialist. Why not eliminate that step and go directly to your primary care physician who will get to know your health so well, that they could possibly, one day, see something out of character for you, that a doctor in an urgent care facility would never notice?
What have been your experiences between an urgent care or primary care physician and what do you prefer?