The American medical industry is a truly vast one, and medical care may be administered in many different ways. There is more to medical care than a hospital and its ER; many American patients visit urgent care centers, and these urgent medical care sites can provide convenient care for a fair price and in a tight time frame. If a victim suffers from a wound or an illness and needs professional attention, a nearby responsible adult may look for urgent medical care online with a PC or a smartphone if they don’t already know a place. They can find urgent medical care with queries such as “urgent care doctors near me Boston MA” or “24 hour walk in clinics Seattle WA”. The seeker might look for 24 hour clinics in particular if the victim needs help at an odd time of day, and the results page on a search may show the hours of each clinic listed. And what about finding a family practice doctor? Family practice physicians can be very helpful, too.

Getting Urgent Care

It should be noted that urgent medical care is different from emergency care. Emergency care is for life-threatening injuries and conditions such as stab wounds or broken arms or difficulty breathing. By contrast, urgent care can handle more minor medical cases that don’t threaten a life, and this is important. It is expensive and time-consuming to visit the ER for a minor medical case, and that patient may take up room that a patient in dire condition may need. Instead, urgent medical care sites such as walk in clinics may offer care in a more practical manner.

Many hundreds of these urgent care centers can be found across the United States today, if not a few thousand of them, and they can be found in cities and many towns across the nation. These clinics tend to be small and independent sites run by nurse practitioners and physicians, though some of them may form small local networks with one another. Where can they be found? Many are built into strip malls and thus are easy to find and get parking for, while some are found inside major retailers such as Target or Wal-Mart, and often include a pharmacy for the convenience of shoppers. Some urgent care centers can even be found in hospitals, offering separate care from the hospital itself. If they are running smoothly, these walk in clinics may see three patients per hour.

A patient at these clinics may get stitches and bandages for shallow cuts, and they can get lotion or ointment for bad rashes or sunburn, too. Four in five such clinics can get bone fracture treatment, and most urgent care clinics also offer treatment for ankle and wrist sprains. At these clinics, guests may get medicinal relief from the common cold and flu during influenza season, too, or get an upper respiratory issue looked at.

A Family Doctor

An urgent care clinic is one that patients may visit at any time, while a dedicated doctor’s office is one that patients visit by appointment to see an expert doctor. Some doctors are specialized, where pediatricians only see children as their patients while others may specialize in the elderly. Family doctors, meanwhile, are flexible and can look after patients of all ages. They typically take on an entire family of patients at a time, hence the name.

When a family moves to a new city, for example, the parents may look up local family doctor practices online, and they will get a whole list of results with searches such as “best family doctors Dallas TX” or the like. The clients may visit nearby family doctor offices that accept their health insurance, and at a doctor’s office, the clients may make a fair evaluation of any office. The parents may consult the doctors and support staff there to review their credentials, such as the doctor’s work history, educational background, awards and recognition, patient reviews, and more. The children may be brought along too, to see if the children get along with a doctor and feel comfortable in the premises. The family may tour a number of doctor’s offices this way until they find one that suits their needs, and sign up as patients.