Urgent cares all over the states are improving and growing from urgent care in Frisco TX to urgent cares in San Francisco, CA and all the way back to the east coast. Til now, most people would opt for an emergency room when something went wrong but you don’t have to do that anymore. Non critical care can be anything from sore throats to broken arms and they can all be seen at an urgent care clinic. There are good things and bad things about urgent care. Well, there aren’t really any bad things, just maybe a few disadvantages. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons to all urgent care clinics including urgent care in Frisco TX.
- Wait Times
Emergency Room: typically, you’ll wait for at least an hour in an emergency room. There really is no way to tell how long your wait will be because they do not base who is seen on a first come, first served basis. Instead, the patient list is based off of severity of condition or injury. If someone comes in after that whose condition is worse than yours, they will be seen before you. Of course, life threatening situations are placed as priority.
Urgent Care: wait times usually are no longer than 15 to 20 minutes even if you just walk in. For example, if you go into an urgent care in Frisco TX, you’ll be asked to sign in and possibly fill out some paper work. That will take you about 10 minutes. No more than 10 minutes after that, you should be called back to see the medical professional, be it a nurse or doctor. Urgent cares do not take life threatening cases so there is no chance that some one will be able to cut in line. - Scheduling Appointments
Emergency Room: there are absolutely no appointments when going to an emergency room. It’s for unexpected emergencies and people tend not to be able to plan for those. If you called for an appointment, you would likely be pointed to an urgent care or your doctor’s office.
Urgent Care: while you can’t make official appointments for an urgent care in Frisco TX, you can use their call ahead option if they offer it. Not all urgent care clinics have the ability to do call ahead appointments but many do. You can go on their website or call the clinic if you want to find out. If this is available, you’ll have the option to put your name in before heading out so you know how long the wait will be and approximately what time you will be seen. You may still want to arrive five minutes before so you can fill out any necessary paperwork. - Seeing Doctors
Emergency Room: ER doctors run a very high stress, fast paced career. While you will be able to see a doctor when you visit the emergency room, you may not have his attention for very long. There are more instances of misdiagnoses in the emergency room because of the need for the doctor to get back to life threatening situations.
Urgent Care: the urgent care atmosphere is much calmer and there is still always a doctor on the premises. He may still be in a bit of a hurry because he has other patients to see. They try to keep wait times and visit times as short as possible which means the doctor cannot dilly dally but you will get to see him or her if it is necessary. Most urgent care clinics are actually owned by physicians so they have a special vested interested in making sure they are taken care of.
There are many comparisons that can be made been urgent care clinics and emergency rooms such as cost: emergency rooms are much more expensive than urgent care centers but what it really comes down to is whether or not your situation is life or death. If the answer to that is yes, then go to the emergency room; if not, maybe try out an urgent care facility and see what you think. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you experience there from the customer service to the medical care.