Urgent Care Centers Fill The Void For A Well-Needed Health Care Centers
Urgent care facilities are fast becoming alternative facilities for communities that find it feasible to use the much-needed health care services in their areas. From all indications, the centers provide walk-in care for everyday illnesses and injuries people sustain that need immediate attention but not emergency care. The service comes as quite a relief for overcrowded emergency departments and fills the void for a well-needed health care service.
Offering A Well-Needed Service
Apart from serving the needs of patients who felt frustrated with long waits at emergency rooms and inadequate access to care, the centers apparently serve another two-fold purpose as well. Hospitals love the centers because it provides them future patients. Health plans believe that the centers cut costs by directing patients away from using very costly emergency department facilities. Other health care providers find a flaw in urgent care centers because the centers do not accept chronic and complex cases. Despite that, the centers are flourishing all over the country.
What Makes Urgent Care Centers So Popular?
Access to urgent care centers is the driving source for its popularity. You can walk into one of these facilities and have your health care needs taken care of not only during regular office hours but also during the evenings when you get off work and on weekends as well. The centers' services match the services of primary care, and their staff treats conditions you or your children might suffer from.
Those conditions include the flu, simple fractures, ear infections, strep throat and other minor illnesses. Be aware though that the centers do not treat trauma conditions. They also do not render resuscitation needs. They also do not admit you or family members to hospitals.
Is Urgent Care Accessible To Poor Urban Areas?
It would be an overstatement of the year to assume that urgent care centers are flourishing in urban areas, which really need good health care that wood certainly benefit them. The overriding problem in those areas is that there are many needy people living there who are not financially able to pay even a sliding scale fee charge for services. They have not changed their habit of going to the emergency room for care because no other facility will give them care.
Growth Numbers Of Urgent Care Centers
More than 8,000 urgent and immediate care centers exist In America. Urgent Care Association of America's estimates a growth figure of 8 to 10 percent urgent care centers annually. That figure is expected to increase as the centers prove that they've taken advantage of a service that was badly needed in the country.
For more information, talk to a clinic like Alaska Urgent Care LLC.
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