When to Seek Urgent Care Services


Imagine this, it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and you are sitting in your backward watching your kids play. All of a sudden, your 4-year-old starts to cry. She has accidentally tripped and her ankle is beginning to swell. What do you do? For starters, it is on a Sunday afternoon and your doctor’s office is probably closed. In that moment of panic, the best option is to seek medical attention from the nearest urgent care center for kids. Unfortunately, not many people understand the role of urgent care clinics when it comes to medical emergencies. Just to give you an idea, a walk-in urgent care clinic has an emergency medical physician ready to attend to patients with non-life-threatening medical complications. Despite the medical conditions not being serious, the need to be attended to urgently is paramount hence the concept of an urgent care clinic. Being able to know where to seek medical services, be it an urgent care clinic, a walk in clinic or the emergency room is vital when dealing with medical emergencies. Even when urgent care clinics have an emergency medical physician, there are certain complications that require you to seek care services from a hospital’s ER.


Why Choose Urgent Care
Simply put, urgent care clinics are the perfect alternatives for urgent care needs when your regular doctor is unavailable. In addition, an urgent care clinic will do just fine for those emergencies that cannot wait for an appointment from your primary physician. When you look at it, minor illnesses or injuries tend to happen when you least expect it. The problem is that when left unattended, such injuries and illnesses could become serious medical problems. Without the availability of an emergency medical physician, they can be fatal. If a medical emergency that requires attention happens during after-hours or weekends, your primary care physician might not be available for such emergencies. The nearest urgent care clinic will not require you to seek an appointment before you can be attended to. Due to their convenience and ease of accessibility, you are able to get medical assistance fast and in a quality way.

Conditions Treated in Urgent Care
In an urgent care clinic, you will find an emergency medical physician ready to attend to your medical needs. However, it is important that you understand the type of emergencies that an emergency medical physician can attend to at the clinic. Urgent care centers should be kept away from life-threatening illnesses and conditions. Medical emergencies such as heart attack, stroke and major traumas are best handled at the emergency room. An emergency medical physician at the urgent care clinic can however attend to issues such as sprains, bronchitis especially when such conditions need immediate attention. So what are some of the other medical conditions that can be attended to at the urgent care center? An urgent care clinic can deal with urinary tract infections, breathing difficulties, pediatric care, ear infections, sore throat, vomiting, pneumonia and asthma. The clinic can also offer advanced diagnostic and laboratory services. Once you visit an urgent care clinic, chances are that you will see a family physician. A large percent of physicians practicing at emergency clinics are family physicians. This means that they can attend to both children and adults.