We are all trained from a very young age to call 911 in case of an emergency, and wait for an ambulance to take us or someone else to a nearby hospital.

But what happens if there is no nearby hospital?

The answer is urgent care centers — they see on average 342 patients a week, and are often well equipped to handle most medical emergencies.

Urgent care facilities also pose many other advantages to emergency rooms. Check out this list to see what urgent care centers have to offer:

Less Wait Time
One of the worst things about the emergency room is the wait time, which can sometimes make bad problems even worse. About 69% of urgent care centers have wait times of less than 20 minutes, 28% have wait times between 21 and 40 minutes, and only 3% have more than a 40 minute wait period. This could have serious effects on how a given problem is treated.

Less Expensive
The differences in cost between a visit to an emergency room and an urgent care center ranged from $228 to $583, depending on the reason for the visit. It is known that the exorbitant costs of visiting an emergency room deters people from getting the medical care that they need and deserve.

More Accessible
The truth is that urgent care facilities are simply more accessible than emergency rooms most of the time. Since they tend to be less crowded, they mean faster medical care and provide indiscriminate care, like walk in clinics and other health care units.

They provide the same level of care as an emergency room — seven out of ten centers provide intravenous fluids when needed.

Just because you don’t live close to a hospital doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have immediate medical care in the event of some kind of emergency. Centers are equipped with medical professionals, equipment, and facilities. Get educated on the location of urgent care facilities near you, so you can be prepared no matter what (for cheaper and faster).