What can you expect when you go to an urgent care clinic? What can urgent care facilities really treat? Is it really possible to get convenient healthcare without having to take a whole day off work to keep a doctor’s appointment or paying an arm and a leg to visit the emergency room? Medical care clinics are the answer to this dilemma.

What Do Urgent Care Centers Treat?

An urgent care center is designed to fill the gap between the doctor’s office and the emergency room. An emergency room is the right place to go when there is a life-threatening medical situation. When you’re in need of immediate medical attention, but the situation is not life-threatening, urgent care could be the right choice. Here are some of the things you can expect urgent care clinics to treat:

1. Allergies Whether this is an allergy to pollen or an allergy to poison ivy, which 85% of Americans have, you can get treatment for this at an urgent care facility. Other common allergies include animal dander, mold, and dust mites. Allergies can make asthma worse, result in more frequent ear infections, cause sinus headaches, and even contribute to joint pain and skin rashes.
2. Fevers Most of the time, if you have a fever, you can get effective and efficient treatment at your local urgent care center. The best way to know if you really have a fever is to use a thermometer. You should go to the emergency room instead of the urgent care clinic if the person with a fever has a serious illness such as cancer or HIV, or if the fever is in a baby of under three months. It’s also important to go to the emergency room if a baby older than three months has had a fever for longer than a day, or an adult has had a fever for more than three days. If any child older than three months ever has a temperature higher than 102°F, take them to the emergency room.
3. Physicals There a lot of people who have to get physicals on a regular basis. Your children may need physicals in order to participate in sports, or you might have a job that requires you to get regular physicals. An urgent care clinic could do physicals for adults and children as well as any job-required drug testing.
4. Fractures and Sprains For major bone breaks, it’s always a good idea to go to the hospital. But four out of five urgent care centers can treat fractures, and minor fractures will probably get faster treatment at an urgent care center than in the busy emergency room. Symptoms of a fracture include swelling and redness, severe pain, and difficulty supporting weight on the injured limb. Sprains can have similar symptoms, so it’s always a good idea to come in if you been injured and make sure that what you think is a sprain isn’t really a fracture.
5. Cuts and Stitches For minor cuts and lacerations, an urgent care clinic can be a great place to get fast treatment. If a cut is very deep or is bleeding excessively, it’s a good idea to go to the emergency room. For small cuts, treatment at home is appropriate. But if there is any object in the wound, if the wound was caused by anything rusty or by an animal, or if the cut is more than 1/4 inch deep, go to the urgent care clinic to get help.
6. Urinary Tract Infections This is a fairly common type of infection that can involve the bladder, urethra, the kidneys, or all of these. They can be painful and annoying, and if left untreated and infection spreads to the kidneys they can be very dangerous. Symptoms include persistent urges to urinate, especially when that is accompanied by a burning sensation. Cloudy urine, pink or red urine that may have blood in it, and pelvic pain in women or rectal pain in men.

These are just some of the conditions that you can have treated by the medical professionals at your local urgent care clinic. The next time you have an urgent medical issue, visit your local clinic to get the help you need.