It is a fact of life that sometimes, during the course of everyday life, a person may fall ill, suffer a minor injury, or need to get a drug prescription filled out or refilled, and whenever this happens, it may be time to get urgent care at a walk-in clinic, an urgent care clinic, or medical treatment at other, similar facilities. This can be a convenient, affordable, and effective way for any patient to get the medical attention that they need for a wide variety of ailments, and the staff of nurse practitioners and physicians will be on hand to take care of any patient who comes in. Often, these centers are open 7 days a week or 24 hours a day, although this may vary from one clinic to another. For most patients, urgent care is often just a phone call or an Internet search away, and searching or “24 hour urgent care near me” can yield results as well as the clinic’s name, address, hours of operation, and more. What can a patient today expect from urgent care, and where can they find it?
Ailments Today
A number of health problems may present themselves to people today, and the more minor, everyday ones can be treated at an urgent care enter without too much hassle. For example, the cold virus strikes every year and Americans catch a grand total of about one billion colds every single year. The symptoms may last around 10 to 14 days, although for more serious cases, a person may go into a clinic for urgent care and get cold medicine or other treatment as desired. Similarly, patients may sometimes come down with the flu virus, which can present with more serious symptoms like vomiting, fever, aches in muscles and joints, chills, and nausea, and at an urgent care facility, someone can get medicine to take care of this problem, too. Other, more physical problems that someone may have taken care of at urgent care may include sprains. Ankle sprains happen to about 25,000 Americans every day, and someone suffering an ankle or wrist sprain may want to get urgent care as soon as possible so they can recover. Bone fractures are another problem that urgent care centers may take care of; four out of five of them will handle bone fractures, in fact.
Skin problems may also be taken care of at any urgent care location. Most Americans are allergic to the poison ivy plant, and with serious rashes, they may want to visit urgent care and get lotion and ointment for the irritation. Other rashes or skin irritations can also be taken care of with medicine or ointments, and shallow cuts and wounds may also be taken care of. In this case, the staff will provide antibiotics and disinfectants, and they will use stitches to close the wound. A person who steps on broken glass at the beach, for example, or someone who cuts themselves by accident with a kitchen knife badly enough may visit urgent care if home care is not adequate.
The Clinics
Not all clinics are open 24 hours a day or every day of the week to provide urgent care, although many are, and when a person conducts a search for one during a time of need, open clinics may be at the top of the list and the patient may visit one. At urgent care, if everything is going smoothly, a patient may expect a wait time around 15 minutes or so, and a center may see around three patients per hour, depending on traffic. Such centers are often independent or part of small networks with other centers or related medical facilities, and many may accept patients’ insurance for treatment and services rendered. These centers may also refill or fill out drug prescriptions as needed.
Some urgent care centers are retail clinics. This means that they are built into larger retailers like Target, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart, and since these large retailers are often placed at busy locations and have ample parking for customers, visiting these clinics can be very convenient. There, all sorts of medicine is available, and patients can get drug prescriptions filled out at the pharmacy.
