4 ms·

I've found through my experience that the choice of urgent care vs a non-urgent care doctor is more important than I have always thought: An urgent care center

I've found through my experience that the choice of urgent care vs a non-urgent care doctor is more important than I have always thought: An urgent care center wants to focus on the shortest path to getting you relief (your story aside). They'll err towards slightly over-prescribing. The non-urgent care doc will take a more comprehensive treatment path. A slight distinction that might not matter sometimes, but i often wonder how many antibiotics/pain killers I've taken prescribed from urgent cares that were possibly overkill.

foobarian 9y ago
For the ER in our town to take you seriously you would have to have visible bullet holes or severed limbs. Otherwise they dismiss you with a condescending sneer.
pasbesoin 9y ago
Yeah. Rather than your typical urgent care facility, this was the hospital's initial effort to significantly expand its effective service area. It was a quite substantial building -- since expanded to the size of some hospitals -- and they had labeled what I used an "emergency room". My family suggested going there as it was a lot closer. That ER doctor just gave me the prescriptions and sent me off. No follow-up care. I guess you'd have had to see my level of discomfort. My family was equally surprised and disappointed. I take your point. And much of the U.S. health care system keeps pushing patients towards urgent care and "the doctor at hand". Not that there aren't good urgent care staff; nonetheless, it doesn't exactly promote medical management. Also, I've delayed some care because I've been uncertain of the approach and awaited more information and perhaps improved procedures and techniques. This might well be called a conservative approach -- and these days, so much of the U.S. rhetoric is about the need to be "conservative". Well, much of that is actually "Conservative", which is actually a rather different ideology. Yet, insurance keeps worsening by the year. Patients who might otherwise be inclined to be conservative and await better knowledge as well as what would normally be lower costs (in most other industries, "product" costs decline with age and with technical improvements and growing marketshare). Well, in U.S. health care, patients can feel compelled to "act now", because while technology and standards of care may improve, next year's insurance may well not cover it or cover it enough for it to be affordable ($5000 deductible? $7500?), if one even has insurance next year.

foobarian 9y ago

For the ER in our town to take you seriously you would have to have visible bullet holes or severed limbs. Otherwise they dismiss you with a condescending sneer.

pasbesoin 9y ago

Yeah. Rather than your typical urgent care facility, this was the hospital's initial effort to significantly expand its effective service area. It was a quite substantial building -- since expanded to the size of some hospitals -- and they had labeled what I used an "emergency room". My family suggested going there as it was a lot closer. That ER doctor just gave me the prescriptions and sent me off. No follow-up care. I guess you'd have had to see my level of discomfort. My family was equally surprised and disappointed. I take your point. And much of the U.S. health care system keeps pushing patients towards urgent care and "the doctor at hand". Not that there aren't good urgent care staff; nonetheless, it doesn't exactly promote medical management. Also, I've delayed some care because I've been uncertain of the approach and awaited more information and perhaps improved procedures and techniques. This might well be called a conservative approach -- and these days, so much of the U.S. rhetoric is about the need to be "conservative". Well, much of that is actually "Conservative", which is actually a rather different ideology. Yet, insurance keeps worsening by the year. Patients who might otherwise be inclined to be conservative and await better knowledge as well as what would normally be lower costs (in most other industries, "product" costs decline with age and with technical improvements and growing marketshare). Well, in U.S. health care, patients can feel compelled to "act now", because while technology and standards of care may improve, next year's insurance may well not cover it or cover it enough for it to be affordable ($5000 deductible? $7500?), if one even has insurance next year.