4 Reasons to Check Out Urgent Care for After Hours Medicine

If you need after hours medical care, your options can be limited. If the doctor’s office is closed, where should you go? Where can you get convenient care when you need it and where you need it? Read on to find out why 24 hour urgent care locations are your best choice.

1. They’re open for after hours medical care, and all hours medical care! It does depend on the urgent care center in question, but nearly all offer more convenient hours than your local doctor’s office. If you need pediatric care in the evening, or have a family medicine need like treatment for the flu or an ear infection and can’t schedule an appointment with at a doctor’s office because it’s closed, you can get good after hours medical care at an urgent care center.
2. You can get seen a lot more quickly than at the emergency room. When some people think of after hours medical care, their first thought is the emergency room. While the emergency room will be open, it’s not the best place to go unless someone actually has a life-threatening emergency condition. For a sprain, for itchy eyes after exposure to an allergen, for chronic diabetes care, for stitches and sore throats, an urgent care clinic is able to offer treatments and services far more quickly than the emergency room. Bonus benefit: by not going to the emergency room when you don’t have to, you keep it freed up for people in desperate need who might come in later.
3. There is affordable care at the urgent care center. You need after hours medical care, and without a doctor’s appointment where can you go that won’t cost you thousands of dollars? The urgent care center can treat medical issues and conditions for a fraction of what the emergency room will charge. Those stitches that cost $1,000 at the ER will run you closer to $150 at urgent care.
4. There is skillful, convenient, and affordable care at the local walk in clinic. There are plenty of well-trained medical professionals, including more than 200,000 doctors working in urgent care nationwide, available at walk-in urgent care facilities. The urgent care clinic can provide x-rays, treats injuries and illness, provide pediatric urgent care, deal with infections and minor injuries, burns, and fractures, and give you the after hours medical care you need most. Some of the best urgent care clinics are paired with emergency rooms, so that you can easily and conveniently be taken to the emergency room in case the situation is more dire than you imagined.

If you or someone you love needs after hours medical care, consider going to the urgent care center before you run to the emergency room. If you’re short of breath and have chest pain, if there’s a serious car accident, break, or burn, the emergency room should be your destination. For most after hours medical care needs, however, your local walk-in clinic can provide safe, effective, timely, and affordable treatment when you need it.