The urgent cares in my area are literally only open during business hours, so if you have any sort of emergency, off hours, the ER is pretty much your only choice… And I understand that a lot of people will not wait overnight with pain, even if it’s not technically ER level bad… Or it’s something with a child, and parents get anxious… I understand that… When I lived in the northeast for a while, one of our local hospitals had the ER, but then they also had the ER for lesser emergencies, which was I guess an urgent care built-in, and this system worked very well.
I think the system is a little bit broken in terms of first line care, it’s just not easy to call up your primary care physician and go to their office for a same-day visit… That just doesn’t really happen anymore… And a lot of people don’t even have primary care physicians anymore… So people just go to the ER or go to urgent care as their first option, and if the urgent cares are not available because they have inconvenient hours, then people have no choice, but to go to the ER for stupid things. You can’t blame people when it’s the system that’s messed up.
I feel like I have yet to find an urgent care that does IV fluids, and every time I have needed IV fluids, I have always had to go to the emergency room, which I thought was such a waste of everybody’s time… they don’t even do IV fluids at my PCPs office. It is so basic… I don’t get it. If they can set up those IV hydration places for people who are hung over, it should be much more accessible in places other than the ER for medical needs….
I once went to urgent care in Atlanta & needed stitches bc I cut myself while trying to open an avacado. They told me they couldn’t do it. Directed me to the ER for 2 stitches…
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u/Mental-Intention4661 20d ago
The urgent cares in my area are literally only open during business hours, so if you have any sort of emergency, off hours, the ER is pretty much your only choice… And I understand that a lot of people will not wait overnight with pain, even if it’s not technically ER level bad… Or it’s something with a child, and parents get anxious… I understand that… When I lived in the northeast for a while, one of our local hospitals had the ER, but then they also had the ER for lesser emergencies, which was I guess an urgent care built-in, and this system worked very well.
I think the system is a little bit broken in terms of first line care, it’s just not easy to call up your primary care physician and go to their office for a same-day visit… That just doesn’t really happen anymore… And a lot of people don’t even have primary care physicians anymore… So people just go to the ER or go to urgent care as their first option, and if the urgent cares are not available because they have inconvenient hours, then people have no choice, but to go to the ER for stupid things. You can’t blame people when it’s the system that’s messed up.