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Advantages of Going to Urgent Care

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Sometimes it is difficult to decide when to go to the emergency room or when to go to an urgent care facility.  Most of the time, urgent care is more beneficial and in most cases saves you a lot of time and money.  Unless it is a life-threatening issue, you should probably go to local urgent care.  Urgent care facilities provide walk-in access for minor illnesses or treatments that need immediate attention without an appointment.

Reasons to Go to an Urgent Care

-Sprains or broken bones

-Accidents/falls/back injury

-Breathing problems/asthma attacks

-Abdominal pain

-Severe cold with a sore throat and/or high fever

Reasons to Go to the Emergency Room

-Unconsciousness

-Chest pain/difficulty breathing

-Seizures

-Poisoning

-Severe burns

-Serious injuries/severely broken bones

Urgent Care Practice

Because urgent care places come across so many different problems a day, the physicians and nurses must be up to date on their knowledge of medical practices.  Urgent care medicine has a common connection with family practice and emergency room medicine, although a specific skill and experience is needed to work in urgent care.

It shares the bond with family practice values because it caters to men, women, and children.  Acute care is the forefront specialty of urgent care medicine.  This is what connects them with the emergency room.  Urgent care can perform tests such as urine analysis, pregnancy tests, X-rays, and rapid stress assays.  The big difference between the emergency room and urgent care is that the emergency room has more strict and specialized care for the patients, and they have the ability to watch over patients for longer periods of time.

Urgent care facilities work together with hospitals and the patient’s family doctors to decide what the best treatment for the patients is.  Even though they are all separate entities, they work together for you.

Goal of AAUCM

The goal of the American Academy of Urgent Care Medicine is to advance urgent care medicine through education, training, and encouraging doctors to get certified for urgent care.  They are driven by people wanting immediate access to a doctor.  Urgent care is a great place for people to go on the weekends because their personal doctor is not in for the weekend, and they do not have to wait a long time to be seen by a physician.  Also, urgent care is liked by employers and insurers because it costs less than the emergency department, and people can go back to work promptly instead of waiting in an emergency all day.