Urgent care centers provide medical service for conditions that are not serious enough to warrant an emergency room visit, but which require rapid attention. If you are deciding whether or not to visit an urgent care center in the Seattle area, keep a few things in mind when making your decision.
Since Urgent care Seattle centers are intended to ease the burden on emergency rooms by treating non life threatening injuries and illnesses, if you can skip the emergency room and instead head to an urgent care Seattle location, you can help to prevent ER over crowding. There are several benefits to heading to places such as Kirkland urgent care, urgent care Burien, urgent care Kent, or any of the other medical clinics seattle has to offer.
First, for people without health insurance, urgent care Seattle centers’ costs are relatively low in comparison to paying out of pocket at a physician’s office or ER. The typical emergency department visit costs an average of $1,500; while treatment at a Seattle urgent care center costs, on average, under $150. If you are leery about visiting an urgent care, almost two thirds of centers employ a mix of physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants, and 65 percent of centers have at least one physician on site at all times, so you are in good hands. A 2010 study by the Rand Corporation found that nearly one in five visits to hospital ERs could be treated at urgent care centers, potentially saving $4.4 billion annually in health care costs.
Reasons for visiting a Washington urgent care center are cuts, concussions, broken bones, minor burns, sprains, and cold and flu symptoms, among many others. If you are unsure if you should visit an urgent care seattle center, call ahead. You are not only saving yourself time and money, but ER space as well.