The beginning of the school year is a busy time for pediatricians and family physicians. From the need for immunization records to sports physicals is always at its highest as children of all ages are going back to school. Fortunately, by consulting primary care physician reviews and taking advantage of mobile health clinics many families are able to get the services that they need.
As more and more workers gain access to insurance for family care you would think that getting the needed care would be easy. Interestingly enough, however, more people needing health care simply means that the available doctors cannot always fit in all of the patients who need care.
Urgent Care Facilities Across the Country Offer a Number of Services
Whether you are looking for a way to find out if you have strep throat or if your son needs an xray for a possible broken arm, it is important to make sure that you go somewhere that is reliable, affordable, and convenient. And while there was a time when the only choices for health care were a long wait to see a family physician or an expensive visit to the hospital emergency room. Today, however, there are a number of other options as well. Stand alone clinics where patients can walk in without an appointment and clinics in large chain pharmacies, for instance, make health care clinics a viable option for many families and individuals.
Even when primary care physician reviews are favorable, some of these doctors simply do not have room in their schedules to care for more patients. In fact, partly because of an increase in the number of people with insurance the U.S. will need about 52,000 more primary care physicians by the year 2025 to meet the nation’s healthcare needs, according to current data.
As more and more family physician offices become crowded, there are often times when patients opt for an easier and less expensive option like a local clinic. The latest statistics from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey reports, the average emergency room visitor pays total costs of $1,318 and a mean cost of $615. They also wait 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes to get into an appointment. These numbers represent a 25% increase that occurred between 2003 and 2009.
The beginning of the school year rush will be nearing its end soon, but there are still very many reasons that families visit walk in clinics instead of a family physician’s office or a hospital emergency room. Even when the primary care physician reviews are very favorable, it is good to know that there are other health care options as well.
