Getting medical care when you have a real and urgent medical problem or concern is hugely important to be able to do, but not everyone is able to get this treatment when they need it. First of all, a lack insurance can be a problem, and going to a local emergency room for medical treatment can be drastically expensive. Even for those who are insured, taking time off of work to go into the typical doctor’s office can be difficult as well. And sometimes, concerning medical symptoms develop during times when the average doctor’s office is closed, making it virtually impossible to get urgent medical care from such a place.

Fortunately, various medical clinics and urgent care centers are becoming more commonplace than ever before, springing up all over the country as we know it. As a matter of fact, the growth in urgent care centers was nearly 1,000 between the year of 2015 and the year of 2016, and this is a number that has only continued to grow in the years following. There are now considerably more than 7,000 open and operational urgent care locations all throughout the country.

Urgent care centers are also staffed by competent and well trained medical professionals, with up to 20,000 doctors alone employed at urgent care locations all throughout the country as a whole, a number that, again, is only likely to continue to keep growing in the years that are to come. For many people, quality care is able to be obtained at any given walk in clinic location – and these walk in clinics can provide fast and efficient treatment and care ideal for the busy person who is looking to get in and out as quickly as they possibly can.

As a matter of fact, the average urgent care center (more than 90% of all of them located here in the United States, to be specific) will have an average waiting time for patients that is no greater than a mere half of an hour. And up to 60% of all urgent care locations and walk in clinics will have an average waiting time that does not even exceed 15 minutes, which is truly considerable in comparison to the typical emergency room, where the average wait time will be around an hour, if not even longer than that.

And urgent care locations can provide a greater variety of medical services and care plans than many people realize. For instance, up to 80% of all urgent care clinics and locations are actually able to provide both diagnosis of and treatment for fractures, something that many people would be surprised to learn. And as many as 70% of these walk in clinics can provide IV fluids to the patients who are in need of them, saving many a patient who is simply dehydrated from needing to seek medical treatment at the local emergency room, something that is quite likely to save them a good deal of time and money alike.

For many people here in the United States, walk in clinics and urgent care locations also provide the ideal place to get treatment for minor illnesses as well. Many people go into the average urgent care clinic with a case of the flu, which can spread like wildfire and infect up to 20% of the entire population of this country alone over the course of the typical flu season. Though there is no cure for the flu, taking an anti viral for the flu in question can help to reduce the severity of the symptoms – as well as the likelihood that very serious complications such as pneumonia and sepsis will arise.

And data shows that up to 97% of cases seen by urgent care centers are able to be thoroughly and adequately treated there, with only about 3% of all cases needing to be transported to a local emergency room instead. Conversely, however, up to 65% of all cases seen in the typical emergency room could have been treated instead in an urgent care setting, something that likely would have been beneficial to the patients.