Is urgent care cheaper than emergency room

If you don’t need an ambulance, why go to an ER?

Urgent Care vs ER: Where To Go

Texas MedClinic Urgent Care Can Be Your Right Choice

Maybe you tripped on a step on your way into work and you can’t put weight on your swollen ankle. Perhaps you awoke in the middle of the night with stomach pain, or your child spiked a fever on Saturday night and your physician’s office is closed. Urgent care clinics help fill a vital gap when you become sick or injured, but your regular doctor is not available and you can’t wait for an appointment. Texas MedClinic urgent care provides walk-in, extended-hour medical care for minor to moderate illnesses and injuries. Cuts, fractures, broken bones, allergies, stomach aches, headaches, rashes, fever, or flu—we can provide treatment and get you on the road to healing.

Did You Know?

Quick Facts About Urgent Care

• 160M

  People on average get treated per year at Urgent Care facilities

• 74%

  Patients thought the cost of Urgent Care was reasonable

• 10-15x

  Cheaper than a Free-Standing ER

• 3%

  Urgent Care Patients need to be diverted to an Emergency Room

When do you go to an emergency room?

If it’s sudden and acute, and you feel like you need to call an ambulance, then you need to go to your nearest hospital emergency room” – Dr. Bernard Swift, Texas MedClinic CEO

Hospital emergency rooms are equipped to care for life-threatening emergencies like heart attack, stroke, seizures, and traumatic injuries caused by car or motorcycle accidents, severe falls or drownings.

What about freestanding emergency rooms?

Freestanding emergency rooms have popped up in neighborhoods across South Central Texas. These types of facilities are not connected to or located within a full-service hospital. While their fees are just as high as those found in a hospital emergency room, they suffer from a lack of proximity to state-of-the-art definitive care services for problems like stroke, heart attack, or trauma requiring immediate surgery. Very serious patients must be transported to a hospital where the patient thereby generates additional costs and higher medical risk.

The presumption that care is the same at a freestanding emergency room and a hospital emergency room is false and, at the very least, misleading. Freestanding emergency rooms are more like urgent care centers, but their cost is 10-15 times greater.

Choosing Urgent Care

Today, patients choose to visit urgent care facilities for a variety of reasons:

• When a primary care physician is not available for immediate treatment of common illnesses such as colds, sore throats, flu, fever and allergies
• When treatment is required for minor emergencies such as sprains, strains, cuts requiring stitches, burns, contusions and minor fractures
• When an illness arises while a patient is traveling or out of town and prolonged symptoms have made returning home an unviable option
• Shorter wait times than a freestanding or hospital emergency room
• Insurance co-pays and service costs often lower at urgent care centers

• Urgent Care clinics often cost way less than free-standing ERs

• Urgent Care clinics can treat a wide variety of injuries and illnesses

• Trips to free-standing ERs can be costly, up to 10-15x more!

• Most free-standing ERs lack the many services of Urgent Care clinics

• Urgent Care clinics are in-network with most insurance plans

• ERs may not take your insurance or you may be subject to balance billing

How Can We Help You?

Urgent Care, Emergency Room or Retail Walk-in Clinic?

Texas MedClinic Urgent Care Can Be Your Right Choice

When you’re sick or hurting, you want to be seen by a provider immediately. Below is a handy guide to some of the most common conditions that may require care, and where you can best be treated.

News About Urgent Care vs ER

Read More on Texas Urgent Care News

Dr. Bono and her team were so helpful tonight. Came in with a simple issue and they really made me feel comfortable, they truly cared about my little finger cut. Also saw how they cared for other patients. Feels like you’re not just a number, something you just don’t find everyday. Thank you!!

- Joshua T.

Loop 1604 / Bandera Clinic