As a parent, it’s understandable to always worry about your children. This feeling often becomes more prevalent after learning one of your children is sick. When this happens, it’s important to be able to ensure your child receives medical treatment. Considering that, many parents bring their children to urgent care clinics. Here are three reasons why parents should bring their children to urgent care centers instead of the ER.
- Less Expensive Than Emergency Room Treatment
Parents realize that raising children can become quite expensive. With that in mind, it’s understandable to want to avoid spending lots of money on medical care. If you’re looking for an inexpensive option for medical treatment, consider visiting an urgent care center. You’ll find that urgent care centers are able to provide adequate care for all sorts of conditions. In addition, you won’t have to worry about receiving an expensive bill from the emergency room in the mail. - Fast Treatment Times
While sitting in a hospital’s emergency room, you might notice it takes a long time to receive treatment. This is because many people are visiting the ER for situations that could be taken care of at urgent care centers. In fact, research shows that only 3% of patients visiting urgent care centers must be diverted to an emergency room. If most people visit an emergency room instead of an urgent care center, this creates problems. Understandably, this places an increased burden to ER staff to provide adequate and timely care to a room full of patients. However, they’re only able to care for so many people at once. In turn, this continues to keep emergency rooms crowded. You can avoid this problem altogether by visiting an urgent care center for medical treatment. - Able to Treat a Wide Variety of Conditions
Unfortunately, most children deal with a wide variety of illnesses. This makes it understandably stressful for parents to wonder where their sick children should receive care. Fortunately, urgent care centers are able to treat a wide variety of conditions. This is a major reason why so many people visit these locations for medical care. On average, urgent care centers are able to treat three patients each hour. Whether you’re dealing with a sick child or one who is dealing with a sports injury, urgent care centers should be able to provide treatment.
In conclusion, it’s important to understand why it’s better to visit an urgent care clinic instead of your local emergency room. If you’re wanting fast medical treatment for sick children, bring them to an urgent care center. A recent UCAOA report found that, during 2015, 92% of urgent care centers were able to provide wait times of 30 minutes or less. Parents often realize that their lives move at a fast pace. If you’re wanting fast medical care for your children, consider visiting a nearby urgent care center.