Why should I go to an urgent care center and not an emergency room or primary care office?
Urgent care centers provide significant savings to patients and insurers over the alternative of hospital emergency departments for episodic care that cannot be delayed until an appointment at a physician office is available. In addition, their scope of treatment is more extensive than retail clinics (in-store clinics located in retail centers such as a drugstore) making the need for transfer (and additional charges and patient inconvenience) to a higher-level facility more unlikely. The CDC has reported that approximately 40% of visits to hospital emergency departments are for non-urgent or semi-urgent problems (more appropriate to urgent care). These problems aggravate the overcrowded emergency departments of the country, and many would be better treated in an urgent care center.
