When To Go To Urgent Care vs Doctor vs ER

When should you go to urgent care, and when might it be more appropriate to go to the emergency room? It can be hard figuring out when you should seek out urgent care instead of choosing a different option, but keep in mind that the right urgent care doctor might be able to provide you with the help you need without having to deal with complicated insurance and long emergency room wait times. In some cases, it might even make sense to wait until you can see your general physician (GP), and we’ll help you make the right choice with this basic guide.

What Is An Urgent Care Center?

Also known as walk-in centers, urgent care centers like Urgent 9 are places where you can get treatment for illnesses or injuries requiring immediate care. Urgent care centers serve as alternatives to emergency rooms for circumstances that don’t call for access to advanced hospital equipment.

While urgent care centers have limited resources compared to hospitals, these walk-in facilities are highly convenient when you don’t want to deal with an emergency room bill and potential wait times, but you can’t get an appointment with your usual family medicine doctor right away. If you have a life-threatening injury, you should call 911 and go to the hospital immediately. If your condition is less severe, but still in need of immediate treatment, however, an urgent care center might be the low-cost care solution you’re looking for.

When To Go To Urgent Care vs. ER

When you’ve been injured or a condition is acting up, it’s natural to panic and want to go to the hospital without delay. A single emergency room visit, however, can easily cost thousands of dollars, and in many cases, the care you get at the emergency room doesn’t exceed the care you can receive at an urgent care center in any significant way.

Urgent care centers like Urgent 9 are well-equipped to handle basic injuries and conditions. If you can’t wait to see your doctor but you don’t want to go through the billing hassle that an ER visit involves, going to an urgent care center in your neighborhood might be the right choice if you want to get the immediate care you need to be happy and healthy.

A basic visit at Urgent 9 only costs $149, and there’s no need to deal with complicated insurance forms and the other hurdles that accompany even the simplest emergency room visit. In many cases, the modern medical insurance system puts an unnecessary burden on patients while benefiting medical corporations, and the urgent care model does away with all the pretense and provides you with the care you need when you need it.

When to Go to Urgent Care vs. Doctor

An urgent care center can offer more services than you’ll receive from a general physician, and since urgent care centers like Urgent 9 take patients on a walk-in basis, you can see a doctor at an urgent care center immediately instead of waiting until your usual physician is available. Keep in mind that many urgent care centers even provide comprehensive imaging services, which means it’s possible to get the X-rays and CT scans you need without having to go to another location.

When you’ve just sustained an injury or your illness has flared up in an uncomfortable or painful way, you don’t have time to make a doctor’s appointment and wait days or even weeks to see your usual physician. Going to see an urgent care doctor makes a lot more sense than making an appointment with your general physician if you simply can’t afford to wait in line to get the treatment you need.

In many cases, going to an urgent care center is even more cost-effective than seeing you usual doctor. It isn’t uncommon to leave an appointment with your GP with a much larger bill than you originally expected, but at urgent care centers, you pay an up-front fee, and any further costs are disclosed along the way. Here at Urgent 9, we provide all of our walk in patients with full disclosure of any fees they’re going to incur.

Making The Decision To Seek Out Urgent Care: The Bottom Line

Whether you’ve had a bad experience with an ER doctor or you simply can’t wait to receive the routine care you need, Urgent9 is the local healthcare solution you’ve been looking for. Glendale residents rely on Dr. Momijan to provide both emergency services and routine care, and our up-front billing model and convenient location allow us to provide hassle-free services that get you the care you need immediately. Whenever you’re in need of urgent care, call 818-662-7000 to contact the Urgent 9 medical staff and get the help you need!