treatment costsWhy should you choose M.D. Express instead of the local emergency room? Not only are we nationally accredited as an independent urgent care center, but we also provide the same non emergency care as hospitals without the emergency room wait times and costs.

Many people think of the emergency room and urgent care as competing for the same title, and consequently, they assume there’s no real difference between going to one over the other. What they don’t realize is that most of the time, while they will end up getting the treatment they need at emergency, they’re not doing their pocketbooks any favors. Knowing when it’s appropriate to seek out one or the other could save you hundreds–even thousands–each visit.

The vital difference between the two lies in what sort of medical problems they’re set up to handle. In a word, emergency must treat you any time of day by law, whether you’re having a heart attack or suffering from a runny nose. The primary purpose of urgent care, however, is to patch up your scraped knee so you don’t have to wait three days for an appointment with your primary care physician. They don’t really have the proper facilities to treat life-threatening situations. So if you start having chest pain, or fall suddenly and dangerously ill, you still want to go to the ER, not urgent care.

But why is it in your best interest not to take your sore throat there, too? Because of the expense of treating medical emergencies, trips to the ER are extremely costly compared to urgent care. ER visits cost an average of $1200 or even more, while urgent care will typically set you back a mere $50-$100. To put it in perspective, if Americans went to urgent care instead of emergency when possible, they could save $18 billion each year.

Moreover, urgent care comes out cheaper even if you’re billing insurance, and the culprit is copay costs. Emergency copays could be upwards of $100. On the other hand, a copay at urgent care can be much less (depending on your provider).

When you factor in the “time is money” adage, urgent care could be saving you even more. Going to urgent care over the ER would result in faster care for 35% of patients. And with the thousands of urgent care centers in the country, many of whose hours compete with those of emergency, there’s no reason not to choose urgent when you can. So the next time you come down with a common cold, remember that urgent care can not only get you treated more efficiently, it will also leave a lot smaller dent in your wallet.

M.D. Express Urgent Care is locally owned and operated independent of the hospital systems. We are transparent in our costs and make every effort to ensure the patient has upfront knowledge of their cost of care whenever possible. When you need urgent care, please visit one of our 5 convenient locations. We are happy to serve you!