You’re ill, very ill. You’ve tried calling your doctor. There’s no response. But wait–it’ll take two weeks to get you in to see him or her. There’s a back-up with an appointment. You’re losing bodily fluids. That influenza strain is depleting your body. Your temperature is sky high. What left is there to do?

Assume in this scenario that all the over the counter medications you’re taking aren’t working. You’re worried about the loss of fluids and the temperature and the inability to sleep and so forth. But you can’t see your doctor for a couple of weeks. There’s always the emergency room. But it’ll cost.

Over the past several years, a different form of treating patients has developed and arisen across the United States. It’s called Urgent Care. Urgent Care facilities are those designed for people who need a bridge between the emergency room and the doctor’s office. They are there when the doctor isn’t available and urgent treatment is needed.

Urgent Care facilities have several advantages compared to the emergency room and doctor’s offices. Like emergency rooms and unlike doctors’ offices, there is no need to set an appointment. Patients are seen on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Like emergency rooms and unlike doctors’ offices as well, urgent care facilities have numerous equipment available to treat conditions that require x-rays or CAT scans, for instance. The presence of effective medical equipment makes them similar to an emergency room, while separating them from a doctor’s office.

The bridge of care is event in several ways.

Doctor’s offices cost little, depending on insurance. They are one of the most cost-effective ways of treating common illnesses. With co-pays as little as $5 or even visits free of charge, a doctor’s provides a way to receive care while spending as little money as possible, though still seeing a qualified physician.

Emergency rooms are expensive. Just walking into one will cost a person somewhere between $50 and $150, just for admission. After that, the percentage of treatment covered by insurance will vary according to plan. And there are treatments. X-Rays, MRIs, CAT scans, blood tests, and a whole lot more.

Urgent care provides the bridge in that gap. Also, like doctor’s offices, a simple co-pay will work. Generally it is more expensive than a doctor’s visit but significantly much less expensive than an emergency room visit.

Another way urgent care centers are the bridge of care is through completeness of treatment.

Doctor’s offices typically are the most basic types of treatment within the physical health spectrum. Usually a doctor is assigned to you, who treats you, often for the more basic issues within health and then sends you off to some other form of treatment, if necessary. This includes the emergency room, a specialist, or someone to do blood work.

An emergency room is the opposite of that. An emergency room has one of the most comprehensive health treatments in the area, sometimes within the country. There are astounding technological devices available, a team of doctors if necessary, and blood processing in-house.

The urgent care is a bridge between those two treatment arrays. For instance, four out of five urgent care centers provide fracture care. Urgent care centers treat most illnesses, including strep throat, a twisted ankle, a sore throat, minor burns, minor fractures, a minor allergic reaction, poison ivy, and more.

Furthermore, while emergency rooms are open 24 hours and doctors’ offices open just during the day, urgent care centers bridge that gap by staying open more days per week and longer hours per day than most doctor’s offices. 85% of urgent care centers are open seven days per week. And many are open from early in the morning to late at night.

A sore throat is a common condition treated in urgent care centers. A sore throat can be caused due to numerous factors, including infection or virus, lack of water, dehydration, or more. A sore throat is an example of one of the kinds of conditions treated in urgent care: It is fairly common, easily treatable, but taxing enough to require urgent care.

Urgent care centers are common throughout the United States and wait times are generally only 15 minutes are less. Most urgent care centers have a physician on staff at all times.