If your child is sick, your first concern is making sure that they are safe. Before you start typing “urgent care pediatrics near me,” it’s worth educating yourself on whether your child should go to the emergency room or to the walk-in clinic.
- What’s wrong with just taking my child to the nearest emergency room right away? The problem with rushing off for emergency services when a family urgent care would do is that our emergency care facilities can become backed up with serious, but not life-threatening, pediatric cases that could be better treated at a doctor’s office or urgent care nearby. This problem becomes even more serious during cold and flu season. A backlog of cases means that everyone has to wait a lot longer for service. It also means there is a risk true emergency cases won’t be seen in time. Furthermore, an unnecessary trip to the local hospital can expose your child to all kinds of germs and infections.
- Urgent care pediatrics near me: convenience. One of the reasons that parents don’t take their children to the doctor’s office is that the situation seems too urgent to wait for an appointment during regular office hours. Perhaps the parent can’t take time off from work in order to get their child to the doctor’s office during working hours. This is one of the reasons for the proliferation of urgent care facilities, most of which are open both earlier and later then doctors’ offices. Many even have weekend hours as well. Getting your child to a walk-in clinic can be the fastest way to get urgent treatment.
- Urgent care pediatrics near me: price. Another benefit of urgent care facilities is the lower cost when compared to a hospital emergency room. Pediatric urgent care is typically far less expensive than a visit to the emergency room, in part because an urgent care center does not have to keep up all of the equipment and staff necessary to treat life-threatening emergencies in the way that a hospital emergency room must. This doesn’t mean that urgent care centers don’t have excellent facilities, however. Approximately 65% have a doctor on-site at all times, and you can be certain that if the situation is more serious than you expected, the urgent care center can arrange to have your child taken to the hospital immediately. And urgent care centers these days often have the facilities to perform some lab work, x-rays, intravenous treatments, and other important types of treatment in-house.
- Urgent care pediatrics near me: how to decide. Urgent care centers are a great option when your child is sick, but how do you decide whether to visit the urgent care center or the hospital emergency room? You can consider urgent care under these circumstances:
- Your child has cold or flu like symptoms and fever of less than 102°F.
- You suspect your child may have pinkeye.
- Your child has been experiencing diarrhea or vomiting, but without stomach pain or any blood in the stool.
- Your child has sustained a minor laceration or burn.
You should take your child to the ER immediately if you notice any of these symptoms:
- Your child has broken a bone, particularly if you can see the bone.
- Your child has heavy, fast breathing or is gasping for air.
- Your child has a deep or a bad burn.
- Your child has a fever of over 10 2°F, or is less than two months old and has any fever at all.
Your child’s welfare is your utmost concern. You can do the best for them by making the right choice about where to take them when they’re ill. Familiarize yourself with those issues that require a trip to the emergency room, and know when it’s a better idea to take them to an urgent care facility.