In the United States, nearly 110 million emergency visits are made each year by Americans. This is mostly due to the fact that many people foolishly do not trust urgent care facility for kids. These people do not believe that urgent care facility for kids can properly service them. However, people should not buy into the myths that surround urgent care facility for kids.
Right now there are almost 9,300 urgent care facility for kids in the United States and there are going to be almost 100 new clinics opening up each year. There are now, even more, doctors preparing to work in this field as in 2009, fewer medical school students picked family medicine as opposed to recent years. Here are the important facts on why people should trust their local urgent care facility for kids.
Right now there are currently 20,000 physicians that are practicing Urgent Care Medicine today and projections show that the number is going to steadily grow. These people believe that developing Urgent Care Medicine is important and it is now recognized as a fast-growing medical field. That is the first reason why people should trust their local urgent care facility for kids.
A study was conducted in 2009 that revealed nearly 30% of all emergency room visits could have been taken care of by an Urgent Care center. If people were to trust their local urgent care facility for kids then this would lead to a total saving of up to $4 billion a year in health costs.
By the year 2025, the United States is going to need an additional 52,000 primary care physicians to meet the country’s health care needs. The average urgent care facility for kids treated a number of 342 patients per week in 2011 according to data collected by the Urgent Care Association of America. The average urgent care facility for kids also saw an increase of 28 additional patients per month as well.
Almost 60% of all urgent care facility for kids have a wait time that is less than 15 minutes to be treated and 65% have a physician working on-site at all times. Just about half of all urgent care centers are owned by a group of physicians or one physician. Most urgent care facility for kids will have at least seven exam and treatment rooms.
On average, when people are reimbursed for a visit to the urgent care clinic, they receive $103 per patient whereas the reimbursement for on average in a hospital emergency department comes out to $302 per patient. The urgent care industry is also never going to become a monopoly as the market is very fragmented. Most operators own less than three centers.
Almost all urgent care facility for kids are open for seven days out of the week and are usually going to be open for at least 4 hours per day, normally more. The average ratio of patients being treated per hour is 4.5 hours for a physician and this will obviously depend on how severe some of these issues are. Americans rely more now than ever on these types of facilities being open for 24-hour access and visits to these centers have increased by 22% over the past ten years.
Across the country, more than 24 hospitals in rural areas have started to shut down since the year of 2013 and that is why the expansion of urgent care facility for kids is so important in this country. Over half of all emergency room episodes could have easily been treated in urgent care settings.
A report was released from Truven Health Analytics and it revealed that more than 70% of all emergency department visits from patients are for non-emergency conditions and these conditions can be easily prevented through simple outpatient care.
In Conclusion
There is no point in visiting an emergency room if the situation that someone is in is not actually worth the visit. A trip to the emergency room can be incredibly expensive for most Americans and they should not have to deal with ridiculous medical bills if they do not need to. Instead, Americans should trust on walk-in clinics to do their job and to treat patients.