Urgent Care: What to Expect

If you have spent any time in emergency room waiting rooms, you may have resigned yourself to long wait times, unexpected bumps backwards in line, and an exorbitantly high bill with a large out of pocket percentage. 

High quality urgent care facilities offer a different story. Urgent care specializes in filling the gap between the life saving medicine that the emergency room is at its best, and your primary care physician, who may require appointments be made weeks in advance. Because urgent care clinics are able to specialize in this niche, they are able to quickly provide competent, high quality care. 

Wait Time

An average emergency room patient will wait 2.4 hours before they see a physician, and may be bumped to the end of the que at any moment if another patient with more critical needs arrives. The average walk in wait time of an urgent care clinic is approximately 15 minutes, and rarely goes longer than 45 minutes.

Cost

The final cost for care from urgent care is typically less than half that of equivalent emergency room care. Insurance companies are also much more likely to cover urgent care costs than they are emergency room expenses. Expect bill total similar to what you would pay for an appointment with your primary care physician. 

Customer Based Experience

Because clinics are able to narrow their scope of care, they can focus their attention on improving the total patient experience. Visit this website to find an urgent care center in San Diego and make it part of your emergency plan.