When you or your loved ones have a medical issue that needs immediate attention, you may be wondering which environment is the best option: an urgent care or emergency room.
As a general rule of thumb, if you are experiencing serious life-threatening symptoms, you should go straight to the emergency room. These symptoms may include major injuries, high fevers accompanied by other symptoms, signs of stroke (sudden numbness or paralysis in the face arm or leg, altered mental state, slurred speech, impaired vision) or heart attack (chest pain, dizziness/ lightheadedness; shortness of breath) (Source).
Urgent Cares can provide more immediate care with shorter wait times for urgent medical problems that are not imminently life threatening. The average urgent care wait time is 15-45 minutes; and the average emergency room wait time is 2.4 hours. Costs also vary widely, with the average urgent care visit costing patients $71-125; and the average emergency room visit costing $1,318 (Source).
Urgent cares are set up to quickly treat a wide variety of urgent medical issues, such as colds, viruses, flu, scrapes, sprains, fractures, rashes, urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, pneumonia, burns, and dehydration. FirstCall Medical Center also has an X-ray machine onsite, and provides lab testing.
In addition to urgent care, FirstCall Medical Center provides other medical services such as DOT and travel exams, sports physicals, and medical marijuana card exams. We also have an aesthetic rejuvenation provider onsite, Ameri Aesthetics, providing skin rejuvenation, noninvasive hair restoration, and IV nutritional hydration services.
Stop by our Burtonsville and Clarksville locations anytime – day or night. Our hours are Monday – Friday: 8:00AM – 8:00PM, Saturday & Sunday: 8:00AM – 5:00PM.
