Urgent care clinics are changing the way we look at our health. What if you no longer had to rely on your physician who sometimes takes weeks to see you, even though you are dealing with an urgent medical issue? What if your local hospital is always packed to the brim? These are issues that people run into every day even though they are in need of an urgent appointment. Urgent care clinics exist for the purpose of caring for you when you need care most, especially when it’s difficult to get an appointment anywhere else.
Why We Need Urgent Care
Urgent care centers see a variety of cases a day. One of the most common diagnoses that is given at these centers are upper respiratory conditions, and in 2012, the most common procedure was wound care. 85% of urgent care centers that operate today are open seven days a week, which means they are always suiting our needs. There are about 20,000 physicians in the U.S. who work in Urgent Care medicine, with an estimated 3 million patients visiting them every single week for some type of ailment. Especially in cold seasons when disease runs rampant and viruses cling to the very air we breathe, it’s no wonder why urgent care centers tend to fill up around that time of year. Every year, about 1 billion Americans will receive colds, and about 5-20% of Americans come down with the flu every year.
When you are in need of urgent care, there is always a center open for you. Isn’t walk in urgent care the most convenient thing you could wish for if you have sustained a broken bone but would have waited at the hospital for nine hours just to be seen? What if your child receives sports physicals and you need one for him urgently so he can start playing soccer, but his physician can’t see him for a few weeks? As you can see, there is always a need for urgent care facilities for a variety of reasons. They are changing the way we all see the medical world.