Switching your primary physician might save your life some day. Not that I am saying your doctor is not good at what he does, but the culture of the medical industry can really wind up hurting you.

A lot of doctors do not offer after hours care, meaning if they are not open on weekends and you get hurt or sick and you need to see them, then tough luck. Plus, with an increasingly heavy caseload, the wait to see them is longer, even when you have an appointment, and the time spent with your doctor is even less than ever.

This is where the convenient care of an urgent care centers facilities come in. The reason I refer to it as “convenient care” is because if you need medical urgent care, but your doctor is too busy and the price of the ER is just too steep, then your alternative is an urgent care 24 hours center. These facilities provide medical services for conditions that are not serious enough for an emergency room visit, but they definitely need attention quickly.

Chances are that you have visited an emergency room for a problem that a convenient care center could have taken of, for cheaper. According to a 2010 study by the Rand Corporation, nearly one in five visits to hospital Emergency Rooms could have been treated at urgent care facilities, which could have potentially saved about 4.4 billion dollars annually in the costs of health care.

The convenient care of urgent care centers account for 14 billion dollars in revenue annually in the United States, believe it or not. These centers are able to provide top notch quality care for patients without cutting the quality of their services. In fact, almost two thirds of centers employ a mix of physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants. Plus, about 65 percent of these centers have at least one physician on site at all times.

And, the convenient care of these centers also includes on site diagnostic services, including phlebotomy and x rays, because they must meet the criteria set by the Urgent Care Association of America.

So if I were you, I would consider looking into the urgent care locations of my hometown so that I could get affordable convenient care.

What are your thoughts, reader? Care to comment with an opinion on why or why not urgent care is a great idea? Find out more here.

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