Talking of preparation, every responsible individual hopes for the best and plans for the worst. How well are you prepared to handle a medical emergency? Many would get dreaded the question itself. Most live under the denial that they will never have to face a medical emergency. A majority of the population lives inside the bubble that they lead a healthy lifestyle and are well covered to handle any medical situation physically, emotionally as well as financially. We just hope that your bubble never bursts. But let’s just say if it does, then which healthcare service is best suited for your condition? Which is the best healthcare clinic for you?

Medical emergency – What is it?

When you think you require health care service, the urgency may be on several levels. If you think you can visit the physician within a week, you probably need a primary care physician. If your medical condition cannot wait for more than 24 hours, you need to find an urgent care center. However, if you think that you may not survive even for a few minutes without expert medical attention, it should be considered a medical emergency and you should find an emergency room or dial 911.

The Emergency Room (ER)

All states of the United States have numerous emergency rooms equipped at multiple hospitals and health care clinics. These ERs provide life support at times of life-threatening situations such as heart stroke, uncontrolled bleeding, unconsciousness, breathing trouble, severe burns, and serious injuries like road accidents, and knife or gunshot wounds. These ER healthcare clinics are well-equipped to save a person from certain death; who will later be transferred into an intensive care unit (ICU) once stabilized. These healthcare clinics are costly and should be reserved only for life-threatening situations. However, it is common for people to visit ER for trivial medical issues but assumed to be life-threatening by them or their relatives.

Urgent Care Center

When you think you require health care service within the next 24 hours, the place to visit is the urgent care center. They are often accepting patients on holidays as well as weekends and offer a range of medical services such as lab workup, vaccination, medicines, and other urgent medical care. It is also possible to book an appointment before visiting them as per their availability. More importantly, an urgent care center is supposed to be a more efficient as well as cost-effective health care service as compared to an emergency room. Urgent health care clinics can be visited for medical scenarios such as flu-like disease, cold and cough, fever, sore throat, cuts and bites, allergic reactions, and simple fractures.

Primary Care Center

A primary healthcare clinic is the most basic healthcare facility. A primary care doctor is usually known to his/her patients for many years, has a complete medical history of the patient and his/her family, and is aware of all allergies, past hospitalizations, ongoing medications, vaccination status, and other important medical information of the patients. The primary care doctor is the most appropriate person to advise lab tests and screen for diseases in his/her patients. They treat non-emergency health care concerns and usually treat chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, depression, etc. They also advise routine complete body profile lab work-ups to detect medical problems before they arise and are the best health care service professionals to approach for routine and nonlife-threatening medical issues.