Going to an emergency center is something that many people do in order to seek medical attention for conditions both large and small. In fact, many a person who goes to an emergency center does not actually need emergency care but instead medical treatment for a much less serious medical concern. Even though the average emergency center is best equipped to treat emergencies that are truly life threatening or in need of immediate medical treatment, there are many reasons that people seek care at any given emergency center for less serious things.

For one, the average emergency center is open at all times of the day. For those who aren’t easily able to take off of work or perhaps don’t have reliable transportation throughout the entirety of the day, making an appointment at a typical doctor’s office is not always a viable possibility. In addition to this, many people do not have adequate healthcare coverage – if any at all – in order to even see many of these general care practitioners found throughout the country. In fact, many people view their local emergency center as the only viable place to get effective treatment.

However, there are a number of reasons why getting care from a local emergency center is less than ideal in the grand scheme of things. For one thing, the average wait time at your local emergency center is likely to reach a full hour – and sometimes even longer, depending on how full the waiting room is at the time that you arrive. In addition to this, the cost of seeking treatment at an emergency center is likely to be quite high even for the treatment of minor conditions, often exceeding $500, sometimes by quite a bit.

But what’s a viable alternative to an emergency center visit? In many cases, it’s urgent care. Urgent care centers are becoming truly more popular than ever before here in the United States, with currently more than 7,000 of them open and in operation in various parts of the country, a number that is steadily rising as the years pass by. Your closest urgent care location is likely not to far away, providing everything from pediatric care to convenient medical treatment for minor concerns. And urgent care locations can treat many of the same cases that emergency centers do, making them more than applicable and viable for many people here in the United States.

The statistics that have been gathered on the subject more than back up this claim. In fact, up to 65% of all cases seen in local emergency centers throughout the country could actually have instead been treated by a local urgent care location instead. And in addition to this, less than 5% (around 3%, to be a little bit more precise) of all urgent care cases need to actually end up being transferred to an emergency room location. These statistics clearly show that urgent care centers all throughout the country are usually more than capable of treating whatever cases might end up coming their way.

And urgent care centers can certainly treat a wide variety of medical concerns. For instance, up to 80% of all urgent care locations can actually provide both diagnosis and treatment for fractured bones, something that many people might not be aware of. And at least seven urgent care locations out of every ten of them are able to provide IVs to patients who might be in need of them. Of course, more minor treatments for conditions like ear infections and even the flu can all be provided as well.

And urgent care centers do so with much less of the hassle that comes with your average emergency center visit. After all, more than half of all urgent care locations and other such walk in clinics have reduced their average wait time to no more than a half of an hour. And even more urgent care locations have wait times that typically tend not to exceed even just 15 minutes, with the average patient in and out in under an hour.