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What is an Urgent Care Center?

Posted: April 1, 2009

Urgent care is the delivery of medical care outside of a hospital emergency department on a walk-in basis without a scheduled appointment. The centers offer extended hours in evenings and on weekends for patients to receive treatment when their personal physician is not available.

Also, the scope of treatment at an urgent care center is more extensive than what is available at most walk-in retail clinics located inside retail centers, such as a drugstore.

Urgent care centers treat many problems that can be seen in a primary care physician's office. Urgent care centers may also offer x-ray facilities, and they may have minor trauma rooms to care for minor and moderate lacerations.

It’s important to keep in mind, however, that life-threatening conditions should always be treated in an emergency facility.

Convenience of Urgent Care
The Centers for Disease Control has reported that approximately 40% of visits to hospital emergency departments are for non-urgent or semi-urgent problems, which are more appropriate for urgent care clinics.

According to the CDC, patient visits to hospital emergency departments currently average 3.2 hours. Many of the problems currently treated in hospital emergency departments can receive treatment in less than one hour in an urgent care center.

For medical care that cannot be delayed but is not life threatening, urgent care centers provide significant cost savings to patients and insurers over hospital emergency departments.

Compliment to primary care
Urgent care centers provide treatment when one’s primary care physician does not have office hours, but the centers should not replace building a relationship with a primary care physician.


Source: Urgent Care Association of America

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