Over the past couple of decades, life has changed dramatically for people across the world. In the United States specifically, technology and other various events have changed how many people interact with the world around them. Thanks to new innovations and creations, we are allowed to experience things at a quicker rate than ever before.
The medical field is an industry that has specifically benefited from this advancement in technology in multiple ways. Better technology means better equipment for better imaging and labs and treatments and services. Even though this is true, there are a lot of American citizens that do not trust or believe in emergency centers. These people believe a number of false facts about emergency centers and urgent care clinics, and here are some of those false facts.
Urgent Care Clinics Are Not Equipped With Good Doctors
This is one of the most commonly believed myths and false facts about emergency centers and urgent care clinics. There are currently 20,000 physicians who practice Urgent Care Medicine today, and the number is rapidly growing. The professionals in this line of work have developed Urgent Care Medicine into an important and fast-growing part of the medical field. This can be shown by the growth of urgent care centers. There are currently 9,300 walk-in urgent care centers in the United States, and 50-100 new clinics will open every year.
A physician or group of physicians own about 50% of all emergency centers and urgent care clinics within the United States today. Out of all of the urgent care clinics within the United States, about 97% are open seven days a week, and 99% are open at least four hours per day. The average urgent care center saw 342 patients per week as of the year 2011, accroding the Urgent Care Association of America. Even further, each center on average experienced an increase of 28 additional people per month. Also, the average patient-per-hour ration at urgent care clinics for ugrent care physcians is about 4.5 patients per hour.
Urgent Care Clinics Save You Money
Emergency room visits now number at about 110 million annually. A 2009 RAND Corp. study reported 14 to 27% of ED visits could have been handled by Urgent Care centers or retain clinics which can save up to $4.4 billion a year in health care costs. According ot a private study conducted by Milliman, about 44-65% of all emergency centers and emergency room episodes could have been treated in urgent care clinic settings. A case that could be treated by a urgent care clinic that is handled in a hospital emergency room can cost someone on average about $2,039. That same case, when treated in urgent care facilties and emergency centers can run you approximately $226.
In conclusion, you should not believe or buy into an of these false myths about emergency centers. Roughly 60% of all urgent care clinics and emergency centers posses a wait time of less than 15 minutes to see a physician, and 65% of all emergency centers will have a physician on-site always ready to help a patient. Urgent care clinics will often also average seven exams and treatment rooms. So if you are worried about it taking too long to go to emergency centers or urgent care clinics for help do not be worried. Instead, understand that urgent care clinics and emergency centers are quite popular in the United States today.