Every year, millions of Americans both young and old may suffer illness or injury, and they are going to need professional medical care from local on-demand care providers. Convenient medical care is possible when a victim is taken to an urgent care center or walk in clinic, and these medical sites are excellent for treating minor and non life-threatening medical cases. Not all urgent care sites are open all day, though, so a 24 hour urgent care may be needed if the patient is hurt at an odd time of day. A helper can look up “24 hour urgent care near me” to find such clinics, and get their name and address. Meanwhile, many Americans visit local doctor’s offices and visit their private physician, but what if the local doctor’s office is closed at the time, or it’s too crowded or the patient has no easy way to get there? This is when virtual doctors can help.
All About Urgent Care
It should be noted that a 24 hour urgent care is not a substitute for an emergency room. If a patient’s life is in danger, then they need the ER instead, to get stabilized. Meanwhile, minor medical cases are best handled at walk in clinics, and there are plenty of 24 hour urgent care clinics to be found. Ever since the year 2000, several thousand of them have been built across the United States, and every city and most towns have at least a few of them on hand. An urgent care center is a small, independent medical facility staffed with nurse practitioners and physicians who can handle non life-threatening problems, and these clinics sometimes form small local networks with one another.
An urgent care center may be found in a strip mall for easy access, and some are built in retailers (these are retail clinics), and yet others may be found in a hospital, and they provide distinct care from the hospital itself. This is often known as “convenient care” since urgent care centers are much faster and cheaper to visit than the ER, and a clinic that’s running smoothly may see three patients per hour. Many of them accept a wide variety of healthcare insurance policies, too.
Patients may visit these walk in clinics to get medicinal relief from the common cold or flu during influenza season, for example, and many guests visit these clinics to get prescription drug refills at the pharmacy built into that clinic. Guests at retail clinics in particular may do this, to pick up a drug refill during a shopping trip. Also, the nurses on staff at a clinic can provide stitches and bandages for shallow cuts and wounds, and they can also provide lotion and ointment for cases of sunburn and rashes. Four in five urgent care clinics provide care for bone fractures, and practically all of them can also offer braces and other treatment for wrist and ankle sprains. Upper respiratory issues are another common reason to visit urgent care centers.
Consulting Online Doctors
Meanwhile, it is also common for Americans with health issues to visit a local doctor’s office, and they can get an expert diagnosis and get a drug prescription or get a referral to a medical specialist, such as an ear doctor or eye doctor. But sometimes, these doctor offices are very crowded, and some guest may be uncomfortable being around so many ill people. Or, a patient may lack transportation to get there at all. But they need medical care all the same, so they can turn to the internet for help.
The field of telemedicine and virtual doctors is a young one, but it is growing fast, and has proven popular. Via live video chat, a patient may explain their problem to the doctor and get a diagnosis, and the video allows them to provide a visual. A recent report claims that sometime in the year 2020, the telemedicine field will reach a value of $36.2 billion, and many respondents to a recent survey claimed that it’s important for a telemedicine company to access health records via Cloud data storage and other means. All this is highly convenient for patients, and it’s vital for those who can’t access a doctor’s office in person for some reason.
