WHY URGENT CARE SERVICES ARE IMPORTANT

Before we get into why urgent care services is important, we have to first understand what urgent care is. There was a time when hospitals only had Emergency rooms (ER), and if someone had any minor injury or illness they had to make an appointment for ER.

It was difficult for the hospitals as well as the patients, because of the management problems. The hospitals were short of staff, equipment, and rooms. They also did not know how to manage and care for the patients. At that time there were no urgent care medical billing services too.

Then urgent care centers were introduced to tackle these issues. Because of the introduction of urgent care centers, hospitals could easily manage patients. They had dedicated staff, equipment, and rooms. This solved all the problems that were faced by hospitals and patients.

What is Urgent Care?

Urgent care centers or rooms are specially designed for the care of patients with minor illnesses or injuries that have to be looked at on an urgent basis. While urgent care centers are for the treatment of specific illnesses, people often go to urgent medical centers for a casual checkup too.

This is because of the unavailability of doctors. You can also visit the urgent care practice if you are concerned about anything or you think that something could go wrong. It is also advised that you should seek urgent medical help if you feel any trouble or distress.

There is sometimes a big confusion in urgent care and emergency. People often have trouble differentiating these two. While both urgent care and emergency are close to each other, they still have some key differences. We will try to tell and explain to you their differences.

SEVERITY

The basic difference between urgent care and emergency is the severity of the condition of the patient. The emergency department is responsible for the treatment of life-threatening conditions. While the urgent care unit takes care of those with minor injuries or illnesses that can’t wait for another day.

STAFF

The emergency department has all the staff from physicians to nurses, and they are available 24/7. On the other hand, the urgent care unit has less staff due to which it is less expensive too as compared to emergency care.

TIMINGS

The emergency department is open 24/7 as the patient would need immediate care and delaying the process could put them at risk. The urgent care department has specific timings to which they work and operate.

Here are some common conditions treated in Urgent Care clinics and Emergency Departments:

URGENT CARE CLINICS

• Minor fractures
• Back or muscle pain
• Cuts and minor burns

EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

• Severe bleeding
• Difficulty breathing
• Head injury

These are the key differences between urgent care and emergency care but we will recommend you always opt for urgent care as long as it is not life-threatening. Urgent care is important and has many benefits to it too, some of them are listed below;

EXPENSES – Urgent care is much cheaper than emergency care because you don’t have to pay for the high-tech equipment and top-tier medical staff and a dedicated room.

TIME – The wait time of urgent care is negligible as compared to emergency care. Emergency care is dedicated to severe cases and they pay full attention to the patient, so it is almost always busy.

DOCTORS – The doctors and the staff of urgent care are limited and almost the same as the emergency department but the emergency department has few highly trained doctors and surgeons too for the intense cases.

Keeping all of this in mind you should always go to urgent care unless and until it seems or feels life-threatening. It will save your time, and money and you will also get a professional staff.

This benefits the hospitals and clinics too as they will separate the equipment, staff, and urgent care medical billing from their billing management which will help them manage the whole process more efficiently.

Medical billing and coding play a huge role in maintaining hospitals and medical offices. Medical billing saves time and energy in the medical practice and helps manage patients’ data and demographics accurately and efficiently.

Hospitals and clinics can fully utilize it and benefit from its full potential. There are many benefits of having a separate billing service for the urgent care department, a few of them are listed below:

AUTOMATION – The first and foremost benefit of billing management software is the automation it provides. This gives you freedom from keeping an eye on everything, every time. It does all your work by itself and helps you save time.

PAPERWORK ­- As we are moving forward everything is digitizing because of the advancements in science and technology. The urgent care billing is also digitized and so, it requires almost no papers and everything is virtual.

EASY EXCESS – Because of the billing software everything is cloud-based and you can access all of the patient’s information from anywhere. It is also securely saved on the cloud.

By having a dedicated billing software you can have some benefits but by outsourcing your urgent care medical billing services you can have much more benefits. This helps the doctors and medical staff to focus on the patients, it also reduces billing errors, and outsourcing also improves cash flow.