Why Urgent Care Facilities Are The Clinic Model Of The Future

Do you need access to convenient medical treatment and care on short notice? Whether you need pediatric urgent care, effective treatment or have questions about what to do about headaches or what to do about shortness of breath, it can be frustrating having to make an appointment or having to wait for a long time in a hospital emergency room. Next time you are seeking convenient medical treatment, don?t bother with appointments and long waits. Instead, consider heading to a location that is both an urgent care and an emergency room.

What type of walk in clinic functions as both an urgent care and an emergency room? It is a new hybrid of doctor?s office. This new model provides the perfect blend of convenience and professional care that many people in the United States need. Keep reading to learn more about this new clinic model for convenient care for those injured or sick.

Urgent Care Medicine is a growing area of the medical field today. In fact, around 20,000 physicians currently practice this type of medicine. Each year, it becomes more recognized as a specialty and continues to grow in the number of doctors being efficiently trained in it.

These doctors in the Urgent Care field then typically tend to work at urgent care facilities, or they choose to open their own urgent care center for convenient medical treatment. Currently, over 50 percent of the urgent care walk in clinics are owned and operated by one or more physicians. This statistic helps reassure many patients about the degree to which you can rely on these urgent care facilities to be owned and operated by real doctors.

Additionally, when you walk into an urgent care facility, there is a high likelihood a physician will be on-site to assist patients. In around 65 percent of the urgent care clinics, a physician is on-site. If not, patients see mid-level providers who are properly educated and trained on how to care for patients and their injuries or illnesses.

A few of the reasons urgent care facilities are so popular is due to their convenience and their speed. By 2014, most urgent care clinics and facilities operated on a 24 hour basis. This allows patients to walk into the clinic at any hour of the day. You don?t have to wait for the doors to open to have your illness or injury assessed by a physician. In addition, most clinics also are open for seven days a week rather than simply during the work week. If you are sick or injured on the weekend, you can head on into your closest urgent care clinic to seek convenient medical treatment. You don?t even need to bother making an appointment first.

Not having to make an appointment makes these clinics very convenient for busy individuals who become unexpectedly sick or injured. Just because you don?t have to make an appointment, it does not automatically mean you will be waiting for longer periods of time to see a doctor, though. In most urgent care facilities, a physician sees an average of 4.5 patients per hour, according to the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine.

You will see an average of seven different exam rooms in most urgent care facilities, too, explaining how they are able to keep a flow of patients coming and going. In fact, statistics show the average wait time is actually quite low. Most patients do not wait longer than 15 minutes for an appointment when they walk in. If you compare that to the wait time at the emergency room or even to the wait time at a doctor?s office where you have a scheduled appointment, it makes these urgent care facilities look even more appealing.

Next time you or a loved one becomes unexpectedly sick or injured, do some research and select your nearest urgent care facility to visit instead of the doctor?s office or the emergency room. The convenient medical treatment will make you a believer in this new clinic model.

Have you ever visited an urgent care facility for an illness or injury? Let us know about your experience in the comments.