Urgent Care Centers

Questions to Ask Before Going to an Urgent Care Center

Basic services:

• When is the center open?
• What professionals are on staff?
• How long is the average wait time?
• Does the urgent care center accept insurance?
• Does the urgent care center provide medications?

Q. When is the center open?
Urgent care centers set their own hours. Most, but not all, are open in the evening and on weekends. Make sure you know the hours it is open. This way you will not waste time going to a center in the middle of the night and finding out it is closed. By law ERs must be open 24/7 (all the time).

Q. What professionals are on staff?
Urgent care centers may not have doctors on duty at all times. While some centers are staffed by family physicians or doctors with ER training, others only have doctors “on call” (such as a radiologist to read X-rays). Urgent care centers may be staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants trained to handle common medical problems. Their care might include doing blood work, giving X-rays, and providing oxygen.

Q. How long is the average wait time?
At urgent care centers, there is often just a short wait to see the doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant. Short waits can be very important when caring for an older person.
In busy ERs, patients are triaged (the most serious cases are seen first). This means that if your family member’s illness is not the most serious, you might have to wait in the ER for many hours.

Q. Does the urgent care center accept insurance?
Urgent care centers accept many insurance plans. It is a good idea to find out ahead of time if your family member’s health plan has a contract with an urgent care center. If you go to an urgent care center that does not have such a contract, there might be higher fees for an “out-of-network” provider. Sometimes people go to an out-of-network urgent care center if the “in-network” one is far from the family member’s home.
It is important to know that urgent care centers do not have to treat everyone. This is different from a hospital ER, which is required by law to assess and, as needed, stabilize and treat everyone who seeks care – whether or not they can afford to pay. But urgent care centers are covered by antidiscrimination laws. They cannot refuse to see patients because of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.

Ask an urgent care center about its billing. If your family member does not have health insurance, then he or she may be billed at a higher rate. Even though an ER must treat all patients who show up, ER treatment is not free.

Q. Does the urgent care center provide medications? 
Doctors at urgent care centers can write prescriptions to fill at your pharmacy. In some states, nurse practitioners and physician assistants are allowed to write prescriptions at urgent care centers. Some urgent care centers can also give patients common medications like antibiotics (to treat infections). Some urgent care centers will not prescribe pain medications.

• Introduction

• Types of Urgent Care Centers
• How to Find an Urgent Care Center
• What to Do After Going to an Urgent Care Center