When Should You Go to Urgent Care vs ER?
Visit the emergency room if a medical condition or injury is potentially fatal or could result in permanent impairment. The emergency room serves as where you will receive care for severe diseases and injuries but for minor health issues that involve immediate healthcare, usually within 24 to 48 hours, you should see doctors at urgent care. Scott Bonzheim, MS, PA-C., and his team at Clio Urgent Care provide thorough medical care for various injuries and illnesses. We are conveniently located at 4272 W. Vienna Road Clio, MI 48420. For more information, please contact us or simply walk in! You can also schedule your appointment online.
Table of Contents:
When should you go to the ER?
When should you go to urgent care?
What is the difference between urgent care and emergency care?
What is the difference between urgent care and a walk-in clinic?
It’s necessary to go to the ER (emergency room) for a life-threatening situation, and for a non-life-threatening situation, it’s best to go to an urgent care clinic. Still, many people go to the ER when they should go to urgent care instead, and other people go to urgent care when they should go to the ER instead. So exactly when should you go to urgent care or the ER? We’re going to answer this question for you so you’ll know what to do in any urgent or serious situation.
You should go to the ER whenever a health-related situation is or could be life-threatening. You should also go if you’re ever unsure whether a situation could be life-threatening. And if your child or an elderly family member is having difficulty communicating their symptoms or the severity of their symptoms, you should also go to the ER. Here are some examples of situations that must be addressed at the ER:
• Severe flu or flu-like symptoms
• Compound fractures (open fractures in which the bone either punctures the skin or can be seen outside the body)
• Significant chest pain or difficulty breathing
• Serious burns
• Head, neck, or eye injuries
• Cuts that are bleeding uncontrollably
• Fever in a youth three months of age or younger
• And any other life-threatening or potentially life-threatening situations
Whenever you’re sure that a situation is non-life-threatening, but the situation is still urgent, you should go to urgent care. “Urgent” means a situation is minor, but it still requires immediate attention. For this kind of situation, it’s better to go to urgent care over the ER since urgent care will address the situation more promptly than the ER will. Go to urgent care for situations like:
• Mild to moderate flu or flu-like symptoms
• Simple fractures
• Vomiting, diarrhea, and mild sickness
• Mild abdominal pain
• Cuts that are bleeding controllably
• Simple sprains and strains
• Fever in a child over three months of age, or in adults
• And any other non-life-threatening but urgent situations
Remember, emergency care is for life-threatening situations, potentially life-threatening situations, and situations you’re unsure about. Urgent care is for non-life-threatening situations only, and they can handle these situations more promptly than the ER can. This is because the ER must handle life-threatening situations before they’re able to handle non-life-threatening ones. Urgent care clinics aren’t equipped to handle life-threatening situations, but the ER is.
Walk-in clinics provide walk-in services and basic healthcare. They don’t provide urgent care for urgent health situations like common fractures and burns, and they also don’t provide services like X-rays and lab testing. Urgent care provides these services, and they also offer walk-in service. You can come to an urgent care clinic like ours for all your minor but urgent health-related needs!
We hope you have a better understanding of urgent care and the ER, and which you should go to in different situations. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call us at Clio Urgent Care, and if you have any minor situation that needs urgent attention, just come see us! An appointment isn’t necessary, so you can just walk right into our clinic for immediate care. Contact us or come visit us today. We are conveniently located at 4272 W. Vienna Road Clio, MI 48420. We serve patients from Clio MI, Montrose MI, Birch Run MI, Mount Morris MI, Beecher MI, Genesee County, MI, and surrounding areas.
