Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a walk in clinic in the neighborhood where you could go for medical care for common ailments and injuries like fractures? You wouldn’t have to rush to the emergency room or schedule a doctor’s appointment a week or more later. If you have kids you might have wished for accessible pediatric care for childhood illnesses. You may be relieved to learn that neighborhood walk in urgent care clinics do provide all of these services and more. If you or your family are suffering any of these common ailments, that’s when to go to urgent care.

Your neighborhood family urgent care center
Urgent care centers are a new model of healthcare that has quickly become a first choice for primary care for millions of people. According to the Urgent Care Association of America, as many as 3 million people visit an urgent care location every single week. That’s because these centers provide quality and accessible medical care for most simple medical problems.
This makes the nearby urgent care clinic the first stop for most non-life-threatening medical conditions. In case of a life-threatening emergency like a stroke, the patient should be rushed to emergency services. But for common illnesses and injuries like colds, flu, allergies, and even fractures, your neighborhood walk in clinic can handle it all.

When to go to urgent care
Especially for families with kids, urgent care for common problems like coughs and colds, ear infections, and allergies is an alternative to a stressful visit to the emergency room. None of these conditions is an emergency, but the symptoms are serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor. Traditional doctors’ offices, however, will make you wait a week or longer for an appointment, and by the time you get to see a doctor, the sufferer’s condition will be a lot worse or the problem will have cleared up on its own.
At walk in clinics, you don’t need to make an appointment to see a doctor. As the name says, you can just walk in. And you won’t even have a long wait to see a doctor or a mid-level provider. Almost two-thirds, or 65% of all urgent care centers have a physician on site at all times. Wait times at 60% of centers are less than 15 minutes. So when alarming symptoms like allergies due to hay fever or respiratory or skin allergies make an appearance, you have rapid access to quality medical care for your kids.

Urgent care v. Emergency care
Urgent care centers provide quality medical care at lower costs than emergency departments at the local hospital. A large number of illnesses and injuries that are taken to the ER could have been treated just as well at urgent care. A study by Millman found that as many as 44 to 65% of all emergency cases could have been treated in urgent care centers.
Childhood ailments like allergies, ear infections, and colds can all look alarming but can be treated in urgent care settings rather than emergency care. It’s a less stressful environment for children, unlike crowded emergency departments.

Urgent care centers are a convenient choice for quality medical care. With longer hours and convenient neighborhood locations, to not difficult to decide when to go to urgent care. Especially for families with kids, urgent care offers access to quality treatment without the stress of an ER visit.