July 2nd, 2010 – July 4th is a wonderful holiday to celebrate our nation’s founding with family outings, barbecues and fireworks. However, sometimes someone can feel ill over the 3 day weekend or be injured.
In the event of a serious injury or illness or anything that might be at all life threatening, by all means go to the nearest hospital’s Emergency Room. But what do you do for those less serious situations?
For these less serious situations, Urgent Care Centers can often save people time and money, as many insurance policies cover in-network visits to urgent care facilities. Check your own policy and the network to confirm if you have coverage for urgent care facilities.
Urgent Care Centers generally are open for much longer hours than regular doctors and many are open on weekends. They don’t require appointments, are staffed by doctors and nurses and you don’t have to wait for hours like you typically do in an Emergency Room. The costs may be significantly less for treating minor health issues at an Urgent Care Center than at an Emergency Room.
Urgent care centers often see people for “weekend warrior” injuries like twisted and sprained ankles, minor burns, mild skin rashes and allergies, minor cuts, bruises, bumps. They are also popular for ear infections, fever and flu symptoms, coughs and sore throats and minor injuries.
For non-emergency treatment your family doctor is still typically your best bet, but when that’s not possible you may want to consider Urgent Care. However, ALWAYS go to the ER for anything that you think could be life threatening, heart issues, stroke, severe bleeding, head injuries or major trauma.
That’s really cool that Urgent Care Centers tend to have longer hours than other doctors and are often open on weekends. My daughter has this small rash on her arm that hasn’t gone away in a week. I’m rather nervous about it, but I wasn’t sure who exactly I should go to. I think that I’ll find an Urgent Care Center near me to take her to before it gets worse.