Here in the United States, getting convenient medical care can sometimes prove challenging. Even though most doctors will spend around 31 hours a week devoted to patient care alone, many are closed on weekends and during the evenings, making it hard to get convenient medical care if you develop a medical concern during this period of time.
And while emergency rooms are always open, going to an ER for a less than emergent medical issue is also less than ideal, thanks to the fact that emergency room visits can be hugely expensive indeed. In fact, the average emergency room visit now costs more than $1,000 – and many are even more costly. In addition to this, medical care given in the typical emergency room is often far from convenient. It can take up to an hour to get a bed in an emergency room and even longer to actually get treated. Even for a relatively minor issue, many people find themselves waiting a considerable period of time.
Fortunately, there are a number of alternatives in place for convenient medical care. For one thing, telemedicine is becoming more and more prominent, the rise of the virtual doctor apparent all throughout the United States. If they can speak to their own physician or a doctor within the practice, doctors who will have their medical information already, more than half of all people have said that they would be comfortable speaking to an online doctor. After all, most people (more than 60% of survey respondents, to be just a bit more specific) have stated that they think on-demand care through a virtual doctor can only be successful and a sufficient form of medical care if the doctor in question has access to the medical records and health history of the patient, as this is something that they can base their decisions off of.
Even if you don’t feel comfortable with using an online doctor, you can still get convenient medical care. After all, 24 hour urgent care centers are becoming more and more popular with the passage of time. Already, these urgent care centers can be found all throughout the country, thousands of them now open for business. Staffed by more than 20,000 doctors and other such medical professionals, urgent care locations can provide top notch convenient medical care.
And this convenient medical care can encompass a wide variety of different medical concerns. For instance, you can get convenient medical care for a variety of illnesses in any given urgent care location. Going in for an ear infection is common, as is going to an urgent care center to be tested and treated for a UTI. Ultimately, while the flu cannot be cured, you can even lessen the duration of your flu by getting convenient medical care from a local urgent care center, thanks to the fact that urgent care centers will be able to dispense anti viral medication.
You can even get convenient medical care for various injuries when you go to a local urgent care center. As a matter of fact, with upwards of 25,000 people spraining their ankles on a daily basis, urgent care doctors are adept and skilled at providing convenient medical care for such issues and injuries. And convenient medical care can even come in the form of fracture care, something that might surprise many people. But it’s true that more than three quarters of all urgent care locations are able to provide this fracture care with ease, as they have the right set of skills and the right equipment to do so.
At the end of the day, there are many things to consider when it comes to getting convenient medical care. For many people, convenient medical care while avoiding having to go to their local emergency room will be most ideal. At the end of the day, avoiding the emergency room as well as the cost and long wait time associated with it will benefit you quite immensely. Therefore, it is a good thing that virtual doctors and urgent centers can provide the convenient medical care that people are in need of. All things considered, this trend will only grow.
