When you’re sick, all you want is to feel better fast. You don’t want to wait for the doctor to get back to you, and you don’t want to run around trying to get medication. All you want to do is lie down, close your eyes, and pray that you will magically be cured.
If you can’t get through to your doctor, you could always go to the emergency room and be treated. While this is a great option, sitting in an ER waiting room for hours while more serious cases are tended to is probably not ideal either.
So what can you do?
Luckily, urgent care clinics are there to help.
There are thousands of urgent care clinics across the country. These facilities are usually open seven days a week, and operate beyond normal business hours, making them much more convenient. Some urgent care centers are even open 24 hours a day, and they are staffed with highly-trained medical personnel — nurses, physicians assistants, and x-ray technicians are among the few professionals on staff. All urgent care facilities also require a physician onsite at all times during business hours.
One of the advantages of urgent care clinics is that your wait time will be reduced significantly. Not only do you usually spend hours waiting in the ER to be seen, the time it takes them to treat you and send you on your way can also be lengthy. In an urgent care facility, more than half of the patients surveyed by The Urgent Care Association of American said they were treated within 15 minutes and also in and out of the clinic within an hour.
In addition, you can expect to pay hundreds of dollars less in urgent care clinics. Even without insurance, the average cost of a visit to one of these centers is no more than $150. The ER could cost you up to $1,500 for the visit itself, let alone the cost of any x-rays or additional medical treatment.
So there is no reason to keep suffering with your flu. Head to the nearest clinic and get the urgent medical care you need to start feeling better.
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