Urgent care service or convenient care service refers to immediate medical attention and treatment for non-emergency injuries, non-fatal illnesses, or any medical condition that is not life threatening. When a doctor is unavailable and a patient needs essential medical care and assistance right away, urgent care services are the answer.
What is urgent care service?
Urgent care service is provided for people with mild to moderate health conditions who want or need to see a doctor right away. It is an immediate medical care service when your primary healthcare provider is not available or when you don’t want to wait in an emergency room.
Those with non-life-threatening illnesses or injuries should consider going to urgent care centers or urgent care clinics instead of emergency rooms to help prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed, especially during the current coronavirus global pandemic.
What medical conditions need urgent care services?
Urgent healthcare facilities can provide emergency care, assistance, treatment, or urgent care services for the following:
Accidents or falls
Cuts that don't bleed much but may require stitches
Eye or skin irritations or infections
Mild to moderate breathing difficulties
Broken fingers or toes
Fractures
Fever or flu
Vomiting
Diarrhea or dehydration
Temporary hearing loss
Animal or insect bites
Urinary tract infections
Neck pain
Strains, sprains, breaks
Severe sore throats or coughs
Back problems
Benefits of Urgent Care Service
- First, you can immediately receive medical assistance once you step inside the facility. Accidents can happen at any time and there is nothing more frustrating than having to wait for a healthcare professional to be available to tend to you.
- Second, even though most urgent health care clinics are not open 24 hours a day, they are open extended hours as well as open on Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Therefore, your medical needs can be attended to by a primary care physician even during non-business hours – just when you need it the most.
- Third, seeking urgent care services for non-fatal or non-emergent medical conditions will cost you less when you opt for urgent care service instead of going to hospitals or to your family doctor.
- Fourth, unlike in a regular visit to the doctor’s office, appointments for urgent care services are also not required and you can still receive medical attention even if you are a walk-in patient.
- Fifth, urgent care service is an ideal solution for administering first aid to minor health issues or providing instant relief to simple illnesses without the high cost associated with a trip to a hospital emergency room.
Urgent Care vs. Walk-In Clinic
Walk-in clinics, retail clinics, and convenient care are similar in the sense that they provide immediate medical attention for injuries and illnesses that are not life threatening. All of these will treat patients even without appointments or reservations and are a more affordable substitute for emergency rooms.
All of these healthcare facilities were created to lessen your wait time in hospital emergency rooms, to provide more affordable healthcare services, and to help prevent emergency rooms, hospitals, or other medical facilities from being overwhelmed with too many patients.
However, convenient care always requires at least one medical doctor or licensed healthcare professional to be present. They are also staffed with nurse practitioners and physician assistants which can provide assistance, treatment, and immediate medical treatment anytime of the day, all year round.
What to Bring During an Urgent Care Appointment
A trip to an urgent health care location is just like going to the hospital. Make your medical provider’s job easier by bringing a list or your supply of current medications so that they could act quickly and provide the most ideal medical assistance/treatment that you need.
It is also important to know what your allergies are so that doctors at urgent care facilities can forego any unnecessary screenings and blood tests; this won’t just save precious time but it can also help you minimize your final bill.
If you have sought for urgent medical care services because you may have ingested something toxic, bring whatever that is that you have ingested. This goes the same for those bitten by poisonous bugs or have been in contact with toxic surfaces. This will help the staff decide what kind of treatment you will receive.
Most importantly, bring your legal documents or emergency contacts just in case your medical problem may require more serious treatments.
Which NYC urgent care location is the best for me?
Statcare urgent care services are readily available and easily accessible in eight NYC area locations (Hicksville, Long Island; Astoria, Jamaica, Jackson Heights in Queens; Brooklyn, NYC; the Bronx at Bartow Avenue in Co-op City; and the Bronx at E. 174th Street). Statcare provides reliable, convenient, and flexible urgent care medical services because you deserve shorter wait times than in emergency rooms. Our urgent care services are covered by most major medical insurances. Statcare takes pride in providing reasonable and affordable urgent care services even for those without health insurances.
Statcare Walk-In Urgent & Medical Care also provides flu shots and other types of vaccinations, STD tests & STD screenings, as well as Coronavirus testing. If you’re concerned about making a physical appointment, you can request for an online doctor prescription or book a telehealth appointment.
Urgent Care FAQs
Medical offices that call themselves urgent care may not be certified as one nor medically equipped to take care of medical problems that need urgent care medicine expertise. They will accommodate you on a walk-in basis to fill a vacancy in their schedule. Expect long wait times.
Such medical offices may refuse to see children and may not be open extended hours or on holidays or weekends. They may not have X-ray capability. They may refuse to suture lacerations or treat your child’s elbow dislocation or ankle fracture or other common urgencies, as they don’t have the expertise required for these medical conditions.
No. Statcare is NOT an emergency room. Read our blog regarding where to go – Urgent Care vs. Emergency Room. Statcare is an urgent care walk-in clinic.
Walk-in patients are “new” patients every time, and you need a unique skill-set to evaluate and treat such patients. Statcare is a true urgent care center run by professionals with years of experience in urgent medical care. In fact, Statcare is the first and only stand-alone certified urgent care center in Hicksville and its surrounding area.
Years ago, some companies got in the business of managing their own risk by hiring their own doctors and opening centers in Queens and Long Island. The goal of these Long Island and Queens medical groups was to align with insurance companies to keep costs down by tightly controlling referrals and service usage by their members.
To cut costs incurred by the plan’s members for ER visits, these Long Island medical groups made sure that their patients came back to them in a “urgent/walk-in area” instead of going to a local area hospital ER.
Patients, however, remained dissatisfied with the care services and eventually these centers had to be re-christened and their physicians were allowed to accept other patients outside of their contracted insurance companies.
However, even today their contractual and capitation obligations to minimize costs remains unchanged, as do the provider incentives of year-end bonuses.
Just like health plans, many retail pharmacy chains also run their own “walk-in” clinics. There isn’t much difference. They follow a strict and rigid protocol so as not to make clinical mistakes in patient care. Statcare professionals are highly experienced and well-trained and can handle any out-of-the-ordinary situation.
Retail clinics and immediate care clinics cannot. You either flow with the flow chart or you don’t. Also, like any publicly-traded company, a retail clinics’ loyalty is only to its stockholder. Statcare’s loyalty is to our patients. That’s the difference. When you come to get treated at Statcare, you are THE priority. Always. You can trust us with your health. You can now schedule a Telemedicine visit and get the same great care from the comfort of your home!
Other commonly used labels for urgent care centers:
- Walk-in Clinic
- Immediate Care
- Minute Clinic Center
- Minor Illness & Injury Center
- 24-hour On-call Doctor/On-call Physician
- On-call Doctor/ Physician
- Now Care Facility
- Prompt Care Clinic
- Convenient Care Clinic
- Express Care Center
- Minor Medical Care
- Ready Care Clinic
- After Hours Urgent Care
- Minor Emergency Care
- Ready Care Clinic
- Quick Care Center
- Minute Care Center
- 24-hour Walk-in Clinic
- 24-hours Urgent Care
- 24-hour Pediatric Urgent Care
- 24-hr Urgent Care
Visit Our Services to discover the range of medical services we provide. At Statcare, we also offer on-the-job injury services to surrounding businesses and industries, hotels, restaurants, and office buildings. At Statcare, we provide a wide range of occupational medicine services, including pre-employment physicals, drug screens, and work comp back-to-work programs
Many urgent care centers use a medical provider that bills out of network for their services. Statcare does not. Statcare does not have stockholders. On the other hand, many urgent care centers are backed by financial players such as private equity firms. Statcare does not have any such allegiance or alliance. Statcare is fully owned and operated by physicians. Statcare also offers Telemedicine visits so you can get treated from the comfort of your home!