In the hustle-and-bustle of everyday life, people have a lot to keep up with. They have to go to work, keep up with bills, take care of children and manage their children’s activities, maintain a social life and a whole host of other things.

With so much going on and scarcely even a few minutes to sit and relax, the last thing folks want to do is deal with sickness. And yet, try as they might to avoid it, sickness comes often unexpectedly and suddenly. As just one example, Americans get a billion colds every year, so there’s a lot of time spent dealing with sickness whether Americans like it or not.

When they get sick, Americans have many options for treatment. They can go to the emergency room, which is certainly the best option for them or their children if they’re dealing with severe illness or injury. But in many other cases, only a small percentage of emergency room visits really merit emergency room care. As anyone who’s been to the emergency room knows, you’re often in for a long wait (sometimes hours) before you’re seen and it can be an expensive proposition. This can be a real pain for parents who have to take their kids to the ER and then are forced to wait while their child suffers.

So what else can folks do to get the care they need? The simplest answer is to visit one of their local urgent care clinics. As it stands now, there are more than 7,000 urgent cares across the United States, which are visited by an estimated three million American patients every single week.

What is urgent care you ask? They’re quick, affordable walk-in clinics where you can get in and out and back to your busy life. Urgent care facilities are staffed by experienced medical professionals and the wait time at most of them is only about 15 minutes. As if that wasn’t enough, they’re open until at least 7 p.m. and on weekends and you can even check-in ahead of time to essentially reserve your spot in line.

Why go to urgent care? If you’re looking for quick, convenient medical care, urgent cares are the places to go. There’s a good chance that the local urgent cares in your area are located in easy-to-find spots. As it stands right now, the list of treatments your local urgent care can offer is always growing. Urgent cares are the places to go for treatments for colds, the flu, STD testing, sprains, strains, back pain, minor cuts and scrapes, sports injuries, food poisoning, sunburns, asthma, children’s illnesses and respiratory infections to name just a few things.

Not only will you get in quicker to see a doctor at an urgent care, but you can expect to pay much less than you would at the ER. Many urgent care clinics offer what’s known as price transparency. The way this works is that the clinics offer a list of all the treatments they offer and what they cost. This shouldn’t deter you from seeking the treatment you need, but at least patients can see what they’re paying for treatment, rather than being surprised at the end of a visit.

If you’re going to visit an urgent care, make sure you bring any pertinent medical information. Urgent care doctors are good at what they do, but unlike your primary care doctor, they don’t know your medical history, so help them out and bring information on your medical history, a list of medications you take, etc.

There’s little doubt that urgent care facilities can be very helpful in treating people for numerous non-life-threatening injuries. The best thing to do before you go is to just the severity of your injury or illness and plan accordingly. If your pain is severe enough, you don’t want to be sent to the ER from urgent care. Likewise, you don’t want to spend time in the ER for an injury that’s a relatively minor thing.