HealthcareWhat is the Difference Between Primary Care and Urgent Care – A Patient Guide

There’s no denying the fact that primary care was once a long-standing building block of our nation’s healthcare system. However, the time has changed, and so is the medical care system of the USA.

While there is a significant increase in the number of people visiting urgent care health centers in the last couple of years, many out there still don’t understand the difference and get confused in between the jargon.

Well, if that’s the case with you, then worry no more. This blog is going to simplify the whole deal of urgent care vs primary care for you.

Being a patient, here’s everything you need to know:

What is Urgent Care?

Instead of getting into technical details that will make it more complex for you to understand the difference, let’s take a different approach for understanding the whole fuss about urgent care clinics.

Your primary care physician is someone whom you regularly visit for your routine checkups. But, let’s face it. Your PCP is rarely there for you at the time of your convenience. You have to make appointments weeks before you visit them and if it’s the holidays, then you might as well forget seeing them.

You must be thinking that it’s no big deal because you can visit the ER, and everything will be fine, right?

That’s where you are wrong because you are missing out on a very critical healthcare crisis that you may have to face.

Let’s break it down.

For example, if you visited your primary care physician a couple of weeks ago for physiotherapy and got your complete checkup done, and everything was fine. But, lately, you’ve been feeling a momentary burning sensation in your stomach, and you are worried if it’s anything serious; what will you do?

Will you rush to the ER room, or will you wait for your primary care physician’s appointment?

Let’s be honest; you’ll brush it off because going to the ER might seem a little extra, and you’ll wait for your next appointment. It all makes sense until that burning sensation is a sign of a serious underlying health issue.

That’s exactly where AFC Urgent Care services step in. Put simply, urgent care is a path between an emergency room and your primary care physicians.

You can visit an urgent care clinic any time of the day and any day of the month. It means that if you need care for common diseases like cold, cough, flu, allergies, etc., on days when your PCP is not available, an urgent care clinic is the place to go.

Why Going to an Urgent Care Clinic is A Smart Choice?

Your health insurance company offers primary care services, and you choose a doctor based on your location so that it’ll be convenient for you to visit them. But we all know that there is a limitation to when you can and can’t visit your doctor. No one visits the ER for a cold or cough, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t need medical attention.

Therefore, going to the urgent care clinic is a smart choice because now, not only are you going to get the much-needed medical attention but also, you are leaving the emergency room for those who need emergency help.

Visiting an urgent care clinic is convenient, and it is a wise thing to do as a responsible citizen. It is the reason that Business Insider reported an 8% jump in urgent care clinics between 2017 and 2018. The number has become even higher today.

Can You Get Lab Work Done from an Urgent Care Clinic?

When people hear the word urgent care clinic, they assume that it might be a place where you can only go for minor diseases that don’t need serious medical attention.

If you are one of those who think the same, then you might need to reconsider your perception of urgent care clinics.

Most urgent care clinics are fully equipped with the latest X-ray and other laboratory machines with excellent precision in lab reports.

It means that an urgent care walk-in clinic is all you need if you want to know if you have any underlying health issue in disguise of a momentary stomach burn.

How to Find the Right Urgent Care Clinic near You?

Now that you know how an urgent care clinic can help you in almost all kinds of health conditions that are bothering you, you must make sure that you visit the right clinic.

All you have to do is search for the urgent care clinic in your area. For example, if you live in Manhattan, then search for “Urgent care clinic” and you’ll find a plethora of options and you can choose the one that offers all the facilities you are looking for.

So, don’t take your health for granted and visit an urgent care clinic near you if something is bothering you about your health.

This post has been sponsored by Kamil Web Solutions FZE