No one wants to have a health crisis, but almost everyone experiences one eventually. When you need care quickly, you need to know where to go. While you may have a great primary care doctor that you see for checkups, you likely won’t be able to make a same-day appointment to see them. And if you need truly immediate help, making an appointment would be the last thing on your mind. You may find yourself wondering instead, what symptoms does urgent care treat?”
Generally speaking, you have two options for rapid health care: urgent care centers and emergency rooms. They each have a different niche, so the one you choose will depend on the level of care you need during your health crisis.
Emergency rooms are the first place many people think to go when they are extremely ill or injured. These facilities are connected to hospitals, so they have access to top-level care. They can bring in specialists and high-tech equipment as needed.
Urgent care facilities are stand-alone facilities. They typically don’t triage patients like emergency rooms do. Instead, they take patients on a first-come-first-serve basis. They handle less life-threatening concerns like minor injuries and infections.
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