It is a simple fact of life that many Americans may get hurt or ill during their everyday lives, and after hours medical care may be needed if they cannot easily get to a doctor’s office right away. After hours pediatrics and after hours medical care are possible when a patient or a nearby adult conducts an online search on a PC or mobile device to find one. Such a search may involve using the seeker’s city or town or even their ZIP code to find something local, such as “24 hour walk in clinics in Miami FL” or “after hours medical care in Cupetino CA” to find something convenient to visit. Such a search will show the name, address, and hours of such a site, and allow the seeker to get directions there. It may be noted that some after hours medical care are in fact a hybrid clinic that also offers emergency care, and this allows nearly anyone with a medical problem to visit. In a sense, this will “take out the choose” when looking for urgent vs emergency care.
Emergency Care
Some patients needs emergency care right away, and some may get it in a hospital’s ER. In other cases, however, a patient may visit one of the aforementioned hybrid clinics, which can treat them as well as urgent care patients. Some symptoms are more serious than ordinary urgent care issues, such as difficulty breathing or chest pain. Such distress may soon turn life-threatening, and the staff at an ordinary walk in clinic may not be able to handle it. Rather, looking for one of those hybrid urgent/emergency care clinics may be most helpful. Sometimes, chest pain may even be a symptom of an impending heart attack or another, very serious problem. In other cases, a patient may be taken in for emergency care if they have suffered a head or eye injury, or if they have suffered from broken arms or legs. Organ damage or heavy bleeding will certainly call for emergency care, such as a broken rib puncturing a lung or a deep cut that bleeds heavily. Not all patients who visit today’s ERs even need it, as some ER episodes could have been handled at an urgent care clinic. But some seekers may look for a hybrid clinic to ensure that the patient they bring there can be treated no matter what.
Urgent Car Needs
Why might someone look for urgent care? Life-threatening issues are too serious for urgent care, but many ordinary, everyday issues may call for urgent care instead. This urgent care may be found at a dedicated clinic, or at a hybrid urgent/emergency clinic that can provide after hours medical care. Doctors and other medical staff operate on a schedule, but wounds or illnesses will not, so a patient may need after hours medical care should this happen.
There are many thousands of urgent care clinics to be found across the United States, and they tend to be small, independent clinics or be connected into local networks of limited size with each other. These clinics may be staffed with nurse practitioners and physicians who have the training, medicine, and tools on hand to treat a wide variety of illnesses or wounds. Such clinics may see many patients per day, and if a clinic is running smoothly, it may see about three patients per hour. A patient may expect a wait time of about 15 minutes, and they may check to see if their healthcare insurance policy is accepted there. Some of these clinics are the hybrid models mentioned above, and some of them are retail clinics; that is, built right into a retailer such as Target or Walmart for convenience. These retail clinics also tend to have pharmacies in them, where patients may get their drug prescriptions refilled.
Many patients visit these clinics to get medicinal relief from the common cold, flu, or stomach flu, and they may also get allergy medicine or ointments or lotions for skin rashes. Ankle sprains and wrist sprains, common afflictions, may also be taken care of here, and 80% of these clinics may also treat bone fractures. Stitches and bandages may be provided for shallow cuts, such as on the arms or legs.
