If you’re in need of healthcare services when your regular doctor’s office is closed, try to avoid the emergency room unless you are facing a true medical emergency. Instead, go to a nearby urgent care location. After all, urgent care centers are becoming more and more popular all throughout the United States, with well over 7,000 of them having opened their doors by the time we reached the year of 2016 (and likely even more following in the time that has transpired since). As of the current date, as many as three million people will be seen in an urgent care clinic, be it an urgent care morris plains NJ or an urgent care dover NJ.
After all, there are many reasons that one might go to such a walk in clinic. For instance, the urgent care services that are provided at any given walk-in medical care clinic are more extensive than many people realize. For one thing, most urgent care services contain x-rays, something that might come as a surprise to many people. From urgent care Randolph NJ to urgent care Ledgewood NJ, up to 80% of all urgent care centers can not only provide x-rays, but can use these x-rays to diagnose and treat a whole array of conditions, including minor fractures. X-rays obtained at an emergency room will likely take much longer – and be much more expensive. So while you should certainly go to a local emergency room if you have a serious injury, more minor injuries, even minor fractures, can be diagnosed through the use of x-rays in any given urgent care location.
Of course, x-rays are far from the only service that urgent care clinics provide. They can also assess various illnesses, including the common cold and the flu. The cold and flu are both commonly seen in doctor’s offices of all kinds during the winter months, when they are most rampant. But you can get a cold or a flu at any time of the year. When it comes to the common cold, more than one billion cases will be contracted within that same span of time – just here in the United States alone. Fortunately, a common cold is easy to recover from and is typically not particularly serious. The average period of recovery for a common cold is only ten days, though some will recovery in as little as two and some in as many as 14. Fortunately, one can typically recover from this at home without any medical intervention. And though colds alone will cost up to 22 million schools days lost in a single year, most kids don’t get them frequently enough to really impact their education in a particularly profound way.
But as anyone who has had it can all too easily tell you, the seasonal flu is an entirely different beast. The seasonal flu is also highly contagious, infecting millions in the United States on a yearly basis and causing as many as 20 million doctors visits, if not even slightly more. Going to the doctor when you have the flu is a good idea, as lab testing can confirm your diagnosis. At this point, you will be able to be prescribed an anti viral medication, which in turn can lessen the duration of your illness and even reduce your chances of developing any of the serious complications that the flu can all too easily lead to. Going to an urgent care for such treatment can be your best bet.
From minor injury treatment, sometimes involving the use of x-rays, to illness care, urgent care centers provide it all. They often provide preventative care as well. For instance, those going out of the country might be in need of travel vaccinations to keep them safe. Various types of medical screening can also be ideal – and can be found in urgent care clinics all throughout the country. You can even go in for illness treatment for something as simple and as minor as a common cold. If you think that you have a medical concern that is worth getting checked out, going to an urgent care center is your best bet.
