Where does your family go when you need a place that treats injury and illness? Are you a family that panics and rushes to the expensive hospital emergency room? Are you a family that takes a laid back approach and it willing to wait several days before getting an appointment to see your family physician or pediatrician?
Fortunately, if you are looking for a doctor that treats injury and illness you do not need to pay the high price of a hospital ER visit or wait days to see the family physician, you can get immediate, affordable treatment at urgent care clinics across the country. With knowledgable doctors and nurses, these walk-in urgent care locations can treat a wide range of issues, from lacerations to broken bones to finding abdominal pain causes. The cost of health care in America is a concern for politicians and individuals alike, so it simply makes sense to find the most affordable quality care that is available.
Families and Individuals Seeking Effective Care That Is Affordable and Convenient Often Turn to Walk-In Clinics
The days of going to see you family physician or pediatrician may be fading. In fact, as more and more Americans get access to affordable health care, experts predict that America will soon see a shortage in the number of doctors who are available to treat these recently insured patients. In fact, according to one study, America likely will need as many as 52,000 additional primary care physicians by the year 2025 to meet the country’s health care utilization needs. This number is the conclusion reached by a team of researchers whose work is highlighted in an article titled “Projecting U.S. PrimaryCare Physician Workforce Needs: 2010-2025.”
As the nations prepares to care for the needs of this growing number of patients who have access to affordable health care, it should come as no surprise that the health industry continues to look for new health care platforms. For families who are looking for a place that treats injury and illness alike, the walk-in clinic format is growing increasingly popular. Consider these facts and figures about why the urgent care clinic format looks to be an increasingly popular solution to families who are looking for a place that treats injury and illness, as well as provides flu shots, STD testing, and many other health care needs:
- 20,000 physicians practice Urgent Care Medicine today, and that number continues to grow. Urgent Care professionals, in fact, have developed Urgent Care Medicine into an important and recognized specialty that represents this fast-growing field of medicine.
- Unfortunately, Americans rely heavily on the 24-hour access to care provided by hospital emergency departments. These visits, which are very expensive, have increased by 22% over the last ten years.
- Comparing the costs of hospital ERs to health clinics provides a very valid reason for avoiding the emergency room unless it is a real emergency. For instance, an urgent care-treatable case handled in a hospital ER costs an average of $2,039. The same case treated in an urgent care facility, however, would only cost an average of $226.
- More than two dozen rural hospitals nationwide have shut down since the year 2013. This leaves a large segment of the population looking for affordable and accessible health care that could be provided by a walk-in clinic format.
- 60% of all urgent care centers have a wait time of less than 15 minutes to see a physician or mid-level provider. In addition, 65% of these health care centers have a physician on-site at all times.
- 70% of hospital emergency department visits from patients with consumer-sponsored insurance coverage are for non-emergency conditions or conditions that could be easily prevented through simple outpatient care, according to a report from Truven Health Analytics.
- As many as 44% to 65% of all ER episodes could have been treated in urgent care clinic settings, according to a private study conducted by Milliman.
If someone in your family is in an emergency situation, you need to go is the a hospital ER. Many times, however, the uninsured in American find themselves in expensive ER rooms for cases that could have been more economically treated in a health clinic.
