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Urgent care is a great option to provide your child with an immediate healthcare provider for their needs. Unless it is a critical medical appointment, you may want to consider taking your child to urgent care.
As we discussed in our last blog, urgent care offers a high-quality alternative to traditional medical providers for a variety of needs. But when is the best time to take your child to urgent care or a local walk-in clinic?
Full-blown medical emergencies including life-threatening injuries, illnesses, or medical status must be treated in an ER or hospital. However, anything other medical situations that require immediate attention but aren’t a full medical emergency should be treated at urgent care:
Any minor or moderate injuries should be treated at urgent care
Children are going to injured at some point in their life. Whether that is during a sport, playing with other kids, or a separate accident your child will have some form of injury.
Injuries including cuts, lacerations, bruises, sprains, and some broken bones can be treated at a walk-in clinic or urgent care center! The staff at an urgent care center includes several nurse practitioners that can help triage injuries and stabilize a cut or deep wound.
Unlike an emergency room, urgent care centers allow your child to get care asap at a walk-in clinic to get bandaged, stitched, and treated for any moderate injury.
Flu season and seasonal illness treatment
An urgent care center also provides a great option to treat and protect your child from seasonal illnesses including the flu and common cold.
Urgent care centers and their respective walk-in clinics provide flu shots and seasonal illness treatment for patients of all ages. Your child doesn’t have to get sick, miss school, or deal with uncomfortable cold and flu symptoms if the take a quick trip to urgent care. Providers on site can administer flu shots and other illness symptom treatment.
Sport and camp physicals for recreational year-round
If your child participates in summer camp, school sports, and similar activities then you’ll likely need a sport or camp physical.
The law requires that most recreational organizations must have an updated sport or camp physical on file before a child can participate. The good news for parents though is that an urgent care center can provide same-day physicals without the need for an appointment.
Simply take your child to a near by urgent care center and have a provider perform the physical. Usually, sport and camp physicals only take a few minutes due to shorter wait times and more convenient service at an urgent care.
So the next time you’re wondering where you can get you child immediate medical, just look for urgent care.
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