What is an urgent care center and how is it different than an emergency room?
Urgent care is defined as the delivery of ambulatory medical care outside of a hospital emergency department on a walk-in basis without a scheduled appointment. Urgent care centers treat many problems that can be seen in a primary care physician’s office, but urgent care centers offer some services that are generally not available in primary care physician offices, for example: X-Ray facilities allow for treatment of minor fractures and foreign bodies. Minor trauma rooms allow also allow for repair of minor and moderate-severity lacerations in an urgent care center. Urgent care centers are not equipped however to manage severe or life threatening illness or injuries such as a heart attack, stroke, amputation or severe shortness of breath.
