When an unfortunate incident occurs such as a sudden illness, a laceration, or any other type of injury, the inevitable difficulties that come along with that are usually plenty of stress for a person to handle. Unfortunately, these situations can very often be catalysts for many more complications and subsequent hardships for a person to have to deal with. If a person becomes ill or gets injured and it is not severe enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room, they will most likely want to go to the office of their primary care physician. This is often an issue though because the offices of primary care physicians generally operate on limited hours and because illness and injury can occur at any time, many people are left inconvenienced and in need of another option. Sometimes in these cases, especially when a person is in need of immediate care but is still uncertain about the true severity of their illness or injury, they will go to an emergency room. But in actuality, many visits to the emergency room are not completely necessary but they occur because of emergency rooms being the only medical centers available 24 hours in certain areas. In Seattle and other cities in the state of Washington though, there are many 24 hour urgent care facilities available for less severe but still time sensitive medical needs.
Because the caseload for primary care physicians is so high, longer wait times and difficulty making appointments often result, which is one of the reasons the urgent care industry continues to grow. Availability is also a major cause, with after hours coverage only being offered by 29 percent of primary care doctors. Not only does urgent care cost less than an emergency room, but it is available just as readily. Urgent care costs for patients are commonly for treatments for sprains, fractures, upper respiratory illnesses, food poisoning, lacerations, and concussions. In fact, nearly 6.8 million fractures occur in the United States each year, the most common being wrists for people under age 75 and hips for people over 75. So for residents of Seattle and the numerous surrounding cities, urgent care is available for any of these commonly occurring injuries and illnesses. More can be found here.