Have you ever wondered whether you should visit an emergency room or an urgent care center? You are not alone. Each year thousands of Bakersfield California residents go to the emergency room. Many patients end up waiting hours and paying thousands of dollars in extra fees to treat medical situations that could have been handled for lower costs by one of our Accelerated Urgent Care centers.
When should you choose urgent care?
If you are not facing a life-threatening emergency, please consider choosing an urgent care center to treat your medical condition. While emergency rooms specialize in treating those with life-threatening emergencies, urgent care centers can often treat non life-threatening medical needs more quickly and with less out of pocket cost.
How much is an urgent care visit if emergency rooms are extremely expensive?
How much is an urgent care visit? According to a recent study conducted by the Washington Post, visiting an emergency room costs an average of more than $1,200 per visit. Visiting an urgent care center usually costs little more than $100 for the same treatment!
Let’s say you have a runny nose and a sore throat that is simply not getting any better. Would you rather pay $1,200 to visit a doctor at the emergency room, or about $100 to visit a doctor at a local Accelerated Urgent Care center?
However, you may think that it doesn’t matter if the ER costs more, because your insurance will pay for everything. Wrong! Insurance does not always pay 100% for visits to the emergency room, especially if you have a large deductible.
Emergency rooms make you wait in line for hours
Since there are only a limited number of emergency rooms in Bakersfield, the wait times at these facilities often gets really long. Many emergency rooms try and trick patients with ads claiming short wait times. However don’t be fooled! The average ER wait times in town are 4-6 hours, and patients are usually discharged within 8-10 hours, for a condition that could have been taken care of Accelerated Urgent Care in 1 hour! Due to your long wait in the Emergency room, often you will go in for a Urinary Tract Infection and catch Pneumonia from the patient next to you who has been coughing on you for hours!
When you visit the local ER, they measure the time it takes for you to be seen by the assessment (or triage) nurse. That’s right, the triage nurse, not the doctor. While the nurse may see you right away, you may still need to wait hours to be treated by a real doctor.
Urgent care center cost less and get you treated quickly
Urgent care facilities actually get you treated quickly, not just assessed. Let’s face it. You want to be treated quickly. That is what matters. Just getting in line quickly at the ER and then waiting a long time for treatment is not helpful, and is very annoying.
If you want to learn more about life-threatening emergency conditions that do require a visit to the emergency room, click here. Remember emergency rooms have high out of pocket costs and are an expensive way to treat common illnesses. Next time you need treatment, ask yourself “Is my condition life threatening?” If not choose an Accelerated Urgent care center conveniently located near you.