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Urgent care on the rise in New York City
07.25.2012
The New York Daily News recently published a feature highlighting the many benefits of urgent care facilities. According to the news source, urgent care clinics similar to Western New York Immediate Care are relatively new to the Big Apple, but an acute care physician was quoted as saying that urgent care is a quickly expanding medical field."Here in New York, there's been a very positive response. Everyone is so busy, they want to get the kind of care they need when they need it, in a relatively short period of time and at low cost," the medical professional told the Daily News.
The article emphasized the substantially reduced amount of time patients wait for immediate care treatment, as opposed to the hours the ailing can spend waiting in emergency rooms. According to a 2011 survey from nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate Excellus, unnecessary crowding at emergency rooms is practically an epidemic in New York State. Some 43 percent of the western New York emergency room visits documented in 2009 were deemed "avoidable," meaning patients arrived at the ER with problems that didn't require care within 12 hours, or could have been taken care of by a primary physician. Clearly, those people should have been told they had the option of getting their non-life threatening issues resolved by urgent care.
Moreover, patients may have a shorter wait at an urgent care center, even if their primary doctor can fit them into his or her schedule. Research from doctor-rating website Vitals says that the national average for sitting in a waiting room to see a primary physician is about 21 minutes. That's about as long as it takes to see a doctor at an urgent care clinic without an appointment, according to the Daily News story.
The article advises readers to locate their closest urgent care facility, remember that any potentially life threatening ailment requires a dash to the ER, and always stay informed about the services immediate care centers provide.
Categories: Emergency medicine
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