You are cooking your holiday dinner and you thoughtlessly reach into the oven without an oven mitt. It takes you a second to feel the pain and then you throw the dish on the ground, noticing the large red welt that is already forming. You run it under cool water and put some burn ointment on it, but it continues to get worse, changing all types of colors. What do you do? Do you let it get better on its own? Do you head to your local emergency department? Do you go to your local urgent clinic care center?

Your medical care options
Most people choose one of the first two options. They do not consider the local urgent clinic care center. However, your best option for this type of a situation is to seek medical care at a clinic care center. You shouldn?t let a burn sit that continues to get worse. You also shouldn?t have to wait hours in the local emergency department for a burn. Not only are you wasting your time, but you could also be preventing other patients with more severe of medical emergencies from getting into the emergency department. About 85% of urgent clinic care centers are open seven days a week, making them a great option in this case.

Knowing the difference
Knowing the difference between the emergency room and the clinic care center is important. You want to know this difference before experiencing a medical concern. Head to your local urgent care center if you experience burns, cuts, stings, sprains, or any other medical concern that is not necessarily a life threatening emergency. If you are having trouble breathing or are experiencing severe symptoms, it is best to get emergency room care. Make sure you have contact information for both. It can be helpful to have the emergency room number stored on your phone in the event you need fast medical advice.

Additional benefits of urgent care clinics
There are even more benefits to urgent care clinics in addition to a shorter wait time. In most cases, you will also find that urgent care clinics are more affordable. Even if you have health insurance, your copay will be cheaper than that of emergency medical care. In fact, it should be more in line with the copay that you pay at your primary physician?s office. If you find yourself spending a lot of time receiving medical care of if you simply don?t want a large hospital bill, make sure you take advantage of urgent clinic care when possible.

Another important advantage of urgent care clinics is the dedicated care. Emergency rooms are often overcrowded and do not have enough physicians to give every single patient dedicated attention. If you want to ask the doctors numerous questions about your medical care or if you require personalized care, a visit to the urgent care might be a better idea. There are currently 20,000 physicians that practice urgent care medicine today. Most of them have the same qualifications as your primary physician does, making you feel even more comfortable with your choice.

Immediate medical relief
There are some medical concerns that are not an emergency, but you would prefer to have immediate medical relief. The symptoms associated with colds and cases of flu are a great example. You wouldn?t run to the local emergency department with cold symptoms, but you might go to your primary physician for relief. Some medical offices might make you wait days, or weeks, for an appointment. Instead, head to a local urgent care center for immediate cold relief. In fact, the most common diagnosis in an urgent care center was an upper respiratory infection, and the most common procedure was wound repair in 2012.

When a medical emergency occurs, you might feel too overwhelmed to make the right medical care decision. Do you head to your ER or do you go to a local urgent care clinic? The answer is, it depends. It really depends on your medical needs and the current medical symptoms that are you are experiencing. Just make sure you know the differences.