Care for an illness, injury, or condition that is serious enough to require immediate attention, but not so serious as to necessitate emergency room care, is known as urgent care. This type of medical service provides ambulatory care for the treatment of both acute and chronic illnesses and injuries. To provide such care, a broad and comprehensive set of knowledge is required. Excellence in the care of patients with complex or unusual conditions is based on close communication and collaboration between emergency physicians, specialists, and general practitioners. Urgent care is the middle ground between your primary care provider and the Emergency Department.
If you have a minor illness or injury that you can't wait until tomorrow to treat, urgent care is the best option. Additionally, it's a good choice if you have illnesses or injuries with no other symptoms, or if you have no other underlying health conditions. For instance, an earache can be easily treated at an urgent care center. However, if it is accompanied by a high fever (104°F or higher), if you have a history of cancer, or are taking immunosuppressive medications, it is important to have it checked in the emergency department. Services that are provided in an urgent care center or outside of regular hours are subject to the urgent care center's deductible, copay, and coinsurance for each visit.
People who go to an urgent care center and who, in the opinion of the Emergency Medicine specialist, require it, are transferred to the emergency department of a hospital. Because urgent care professionals are on the front lines of medicine, they must be competent to evaluate and care for any patient who comes to an emergency medicine center or urgent care clinic. As a result, urgent care clinics tend to be less expensive and have shorter wait times than emergency departments. Emergency medicine specialists are experienced in evaluating and treating these patients only with simple in-office laboratory tests (e.g., blood tests). The doctors at the urgent care center he visited sent him home with medication and asked him to return if his condition worsened. Emergency medicine specialists do not perform surgery (except for wound repair and removal of skin lesions), do not care for hospitalized patients, and generally do not engage in ongoing medical care for chronic medical problems.
Because of the simpler administrative procedures and the costs associated with consulting in an office than in a hospital, similar care can generally be provided in an urgent care setting more quickly and cheaply than in an emergency medicine setting. The practice area of emergency medicine that differs from urgent care medicine involves the definitive care of critical patients and the ability to observe patients for an extended period of time. The totals do not include residents who were poisoned but did not seek care or those who received treatment in hospitals and urgent care clinics that do not voluntarily report data to the state. Urgent care services are medically necessary services that are required for an illness or injury that would not result in further disability or death if not treated immediately, but that require professional care and may develop such a threat if treatment is delayed for more than 24 hours. For this reason, there is some overlap in the field of practice between emergency medicine and all existing medical specialties that involve direct patient care. The Urgent Care Center does not provide routine follow-up care or wellness exams and refers patients to their regular doctor for such routine follow-up and wellness care. Of all existing specialties, emergency medicine has the most in common with family medicine and emergency medicine, although its practice is unique enough that urgent care medicine is actually an independent specialty with its own necessary knowledge base, skill set, and extensive experience. Because specialization is the result of focusing attention and having experience in a particular area, intensive care represents most of what emergency medicine specialists do; unlike family medicine professionals who divide their time treating some acute but predominantly chronic health problems. For this reason, there is some overlap in the field of practice between emergency medicine and all existing medical specialties that involve direct patient care.
Because specialization is the result of focusing attention and having experience in a particular area, intensive care represents most of what emergency medicine specialists do; unlike family medicine professionals who divide their time treating some acute but predominantly chronic health problems.
