Nothing is more overwhelming than trying to help a sick child. Whether it’s a common illness or a physical pain, when your child is hurting, it’s all you can think about. In that heightened state of panic, it’s hard to know which type of doctor to turn to. Do you wait to take your child to their pediatrician? Is it so bad that you need to go to the emergency room and risk paying high prices? Is the ailment something that can be handled at an urgent care?
As all of these questions are racing through your mind, all you want to do is help your child. We totally understand this scenario. One of the best ways to alleviate panic in the moment, is to have a plan before it happens. To help you make that plan, we’ve come up with the most common reasons you’d bring your child to pediatric urgent care.
1. Convenience of Pediatric Urgent Care
Regular pediatricians hold regular business hours. That makes sense for them, but rarely helps children who are experiencing unexpected illness or injuries. When your child is dealing with a health concern, it’s not always during the office hours of their primary pediatrician — let alone when you’re able to make a same-day appointment.
Pediatric urgent care, on the other hand, is designed to take patients at a moment’s notice. Statcare Urgent Care is open for extended hours every day of the year — including weekends and holidays. You don’t have to worry about fitting into our schedule, we’re here for you. A convenience you can’t always find with other pediatrician’s offices.
2. Pediatric Urgent Care is Cost-Effective
When your pediatrician is unavailable, you’re faced with two choices to help your sick child. You can either drive them to the emergency room, or you can bring them into an urgent care location. An emergency room is the right choice if the problem is truly life or death. But for everything else, you should choose a pediatric urgent care facility. We have the resources on-hand to help your child, plus we aren’t as expensive as the emergency room.
Don’t let a moment of panic cost you an arm and a leg. You may even want to make a list of reasons to take your child to urgent care and reasons to take them to the emergency room. Keep it on your fridge or somewhere you can easily see it when you’re taking care of a sick child. That way, you can make a quick yet educated decision when something happens or your child becomes really ill suddenly.
If for some reason, you can’t bring your child into the office, Statcare also does Online Doctor visits for common conditions like Pink Eye and Rashes in children. The online visit with Statcare is covered by all insurance plans, so you can get the same great care from the comfort of your home.
3. Speed of Pediatric Urgent Care
Because the emergency room is dealing with life and death situations, they usually have a longer wait. If your child has a low-priority ailment, you could sit in the emergency room for hours before being seen. Some patients have waited in a room full of other sick people all night to be seen by a doctor. It’s not an ideal situation.
Instead, come to Statcare urgent care if you’re not facing something life-threatening. Our pediatric urgent care services are designed to be fast and efficient. We know that kids find the whole process scary and overwhelming, so we don’t want to keep you any longer than we need to. Because all our patients don’t need to be seen in order of severity, we can generally see patients on a first-come, first-serve basis. This helps you know how long you’ll be there and when you’ll be ready to go home. It’s a convenience many of our patients appreciate.
4. Common Illnesses Our Pediatric Urgent Care Centers Handle
If you’re not sure exactly what the difference is between a life-threatening illness and one that can be seen by a pediatric urgent care doctor, we have you covered. Here are the common illnesses that we can treat at our Statcare locations.
- Ear infections
- Cold and flu
- Sore throat
- Bronchitis
- Strep throat
- Allergies
- Dehydration
- Diarrhea and nausea
- Poison ivy
- Asthma attack
- Pink eye
- Stomach flu
- Food poisoning
- Headaches
If the weather is bad or you are running short on time, Statcare can do an Online Doctor visit for many of the conditions listed above. Of course, sometimes one of these symptoms can be a sign of something more serious. If that’s the case, our doctors will immediately refer you to an emergency room or specialist doctor to treat your child. We will do everything we can to get your child the right care for their health concern.
5. Common Injuries Pediatric Urgent Care Can Fix
Parents are more likely to visit the emergency room if their child is injured. Especially for injuries like broken bones, it’s easier to be safe than sorry. But you can get the same level of care with Statcare’s pediatric urgent care services. Here are some common injuries we routinely treat.
- Cuts and wounds
- Bone fractures and breaks
- Toothaches
- Ingrown toenails
- Neck pain and whiplash
- Dog bites and other animal bites
- Burns
- Spider bites
- Bee and wasp stings
- Nosebleeds
As with the illnesses we treat, if our doctors believe that your child’s condition needs to be seen by a specialist, we will not hesitate to refer you to one. We have the same goal you do — to get your child back to their happy, healthy self.
6. Do More with One Visit
One of the benefits of pediatric urgent care is that you can do more with a single visit. Visits to your primary care doctor or the emergency room require a single focus. Your child’s pediatrician, for example, won’t be able to administer a DOT physical if you wanted to be the most efficient with your time during their existing appointment. However, if you want to come treat your child’s common cold and also need to complete your DOT physical, or want to take an STD test or any of our other services, you can do both things at one location. Save time on travel, save on cost, plus get excellent care. It’s really an unbeatable option.
7. Location of Pediatric Urgent Care
Statcare Urgent Care has five convenient locations that are close to public transportation. We want to make sure we’re easily accessible to our clients — which means not requiring extra taxi rides or miles of walking. Whether you’re visiting us in Hicksville, Astoria, The Bronx, or Brooklyn, you’ll find us close to a bus or subway stop.
8. Business Hours of Pediatric Urgent Care
Statcare Urgent Care is open from 8AM-8PM Mon-Fri and 9AM-9PM on Sat. & Sun. and 9AM-3PM on all holidays except for the Brooklyn Office which is open longer on weekdays. So, if you are looking for an after-hours pediatric urgent care, you can rest assured, Statcare has you covered.
9. Insurance Is Easier at Statcare Urgent Care
Another major benefit of Statcare pediatric urgent care services is that we take most major insurance providers. While your regular pediatrician may be in your insurance network, they often don’t have the most convenient hours. And emergency rooms are always available, but you run the risk of paying too much in a co-pay or the visit not being covered at all. That could be devastating to your financial situation. With Statcare, you can see a doctor at a time that is convenient for you, while also staying within your budget. That’s reason enough to come see us, we think!
Our urgent care locations offer more than just pediatric urgent care services. Like we mentioned, you can get a DOT physical or STD testing there, too. You can even get vaccines if you’re looking for a convenient place to get your shot. We’re happy to help you through whatever medical concern you have.
