what do i need to go to urgent care
You cut your hand; you've got a fever and don't know if it'due south the influenza; you tripped and your elbow is feeling funky. Should yous make a doctor's date? Head to the ER? Or go to urgent care?
Often the latter selection is the best one. "Urgent intendance centers are primarily used to care for patients who have an injury or illness that requires immediate care but isn't serious enough to warrant a visit to a hospital emergency room," says David Kim, Doc, facility medical director of Memorial Care Medical Group in Long Beach, California. In other words: non life-threatening. But knowing whether urgent care is your best bet isn't ever that blackness and white. To help you figure it out (and optimize your care once you're at that place), nosotros rounded up 11 need-to-know secrets from urgent intendance workers.
1. You however need your medico.
Although urgent care can generally have intendance of anything a doc's function can, "we don't replace your primary care dr.," says Sean McNeeley, MD, medical manager for Academy Hospitals Urgent Care in the Cleveland expanse. "Urgent intendance takes care of yous when you're sick—having a regular doctor will ensure that someone is looking out for your health in the futurity," he says. It'due south your doctor's office that will watch out for signs of diabetes or track your blood pressure, watch your weight, make certain your immunizations are upwards to date, and discuss appropriate screenings, like mammograms.
two. They don't want to refill your prescriptions.
Information technology seems like shooting fish in a barrel—ask the doctor at the urgent intendance center for a refill on a diabetes or pain medication. Information technology takes ii seconds, right? Well, patients come up in all the time with that request, and they're usually turned down. Chronic weather are best monitored by primary intendance doctors because they're the ones who will come across your treatment through and assistance you with lifestyle changes to command the condition. "If you don't have a principal care doc, you may be seen by one of our physicians or referred to a doctor to begin a long-term human relationship that's then of import for wellness," says Kim.
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3. Whenever possible, you should get mid-day
First matter in the forenoon and dinnertime are unremarkably busier in urgent care, since patients come in before or right after work or schoolhouse, says Kim. After in the evening is another pop time, because doctor's offices are mostly closed. He points out that Mondays and Fridays are historically the busiest days. You lot can't control when yous go hurt or sick, but if you tin can, try to go in the belatedly morning or early afternoon mid-calendar week, when wait times are typically shorter.
iv. There are some emergencies urgent care tin't handle
Urgent care centers will stabilize you, but hospitals have more resources and specialists at their disposal to treat these severe bug. Although the following listing of 10 signs and symptoms that mean you should get to the ER isn't comprehensive, it's a expert place to first, he says. So head direct to the ER if you take whatever of the post-obit: breast pain, difficulty breathing, astringent abdominal pain, severe bleeding or caput trauma, poisoning or suspected overdose, seizure or loss of consciousness, sudden loss of vision or blurred vision, sudden weakness or tingling, severe headache, and confusion.
five. Only you may exist surprised past what they tin can treat.
Because most urgent intendance centers are outfitted with x-ray equipment, you can head there kickoff for sprains and fractures, says Kim. They'll likewise provide IV fluids for dehydration besides equally 1-off routine annual physicals that you may need to quickly get for work or a sports team. (Remember, they'll only clear you for the imminent activity, non follow your health closely like a primary care doc would.)
6. If you're bleeding, go to urgent care (about of the time).
By all means, head to urgent care instead of waiting it out (possibly for hours) at the ER. "Nosotros can treat well-nigh lacerations," says McNeeley. The but times when it wouldn't be appropriate is when the cut is really deep, meaning you encounter bone, cut a tendon, or you think you could lose a limb. Nevertheless, if y'all show up at urgent intendance with a really serious cut, you won't be turned away. "We'll stabilize y'all and get you to the correct place," McNeeley says.
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vii. Don't bother calling ahead.
Sure, yous could telephone call and inquire if your problem, like a mysterious rash or fire, requires an urgent care visit. Just they'll probably tell you to come in anyway because they tin can't brand a solid assessment of what's going on with you over the phone. That tin exist frustrating, merely "it's difficult to tell you exactly what to do until we encounter your status," says McNeeley.
viii. You lot may be seen by a nurse practitioner.
And that's a very practiced thing. The fact that urgent care centers are staffed by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants who see and treat patients allows for greater access to healthcare for the public, meaning they'll be able to see you when your ain md can't. Urgent intendance centers are overseen by board-certified physicians who are on duty at all times supervising the nurse practitioners and physicians assistants. Physicians will be called in to examine more than serious weather condition or symptoms (like breast pain), says McNeeley.
9. If there's any chance you could be having a heart assault, don't go to urgent care.
"When patients come into urgent care with chest pain and we either know for sure that it's a heart attack or recall it might be, we immediately transport them to the ER," says Kim. "You're wasting time by coming to urgent intendance, and when you waste time, you lot waste heart muscle and brain tissue," says McNeeley. Remember, in women, common heart assault symptoms can be sneakier, similar shortness of breath or nausea and vomiting. A possible stroke (signs include sudden trouble seeing or sudden trouble walking) is another reason to head straight to the ER or call an ambulance. (Learn more about the common signs of stroke.)
x. Getting turned away is not as mutual equally you lot recall
Information technology's rare for urgent care to plough patients abroad—research shows merely 2 to four% of patients have to get to an emergency room or another care provider, says McNeeley. Still, information technology happens. You'll be turned abroad if y'all have a suspected heart attack, have a very serious injury that the middle isn't equipped to care for, or display whatever of the 10 symptoms mentioned above.
11. Aye, you should go in example of the influenza.
"If yous think y'all have the flu, you should see a md to make up one's mind if you need medication, or if remainder, a basin of chicken noodle soup, and time is all y'all demand," says Kim. Whether that'south your own doctor or an urgent care doctor mostly depends on the dr.'s office availability and your own schedule. If your doctor tin't see y'all right away, an urgent care heart may exist a ameliorate option. That'southward because if y'all accept the influenza (sudden onset of 100-102°F fever with muscle pains and severe fatigue) there'due south a 48-hr window to be seen to get medication that can assist.
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Source: https://www.prevention.com/health/a20452568/when-to-use-urgent-care/
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