Whent to Bring Children to the Urgent Care vs. the ER

There are many reasons that children end up visiting our urgent care office. Even though most will have a family pediatrician, the pediatrician is not always available last-minute and most of them are not open evenings or weekends. As most parents know, children very rarely abide by these schedules.

It is more likely that they will suddenly get sick in the middle of the night, begin feeling horrible after dinner or get hurt when playing at the park on the weekend. This makes it important for parents to have a backup plan. We are that backup plan for families in the area because we provide medical care when our patients need it most and we do so without requiring an advance appointment.

Create your backup plan

We encourage all parents to have a plan in place for how they will handle a child's medical emergency. It is a good idea to write this information down and put it in the phone, including addresses and phone numbers of various medical providers. This way, if something happens, focus can be placed on the child, rather than figuring out which doctor to visit. We enjoy treating young patients and encourage local families to make us their backup plan for urgent care when their pediatrician is not available.

When to visit the urgent care versus the ER

It is also important for parents to understand when is the right time to bring a child to our office and when they should head to the local hospital. In general, we can treat most conditions in our office without needing to refer patients elsewhere for help or support. However, there are some cases that are best suited for the hospital. We will provide a few examples below, however, we recommend that parents call us or the nurse hotline before making their final decision regarding where to take the child.

When to visit the ER

• Horrible stomach pain and throwing up blood
• Broken bone
• Life-threatening emergency

Otherwise, we can treat most conditions in our office. Visiting here first makes it possible for a child to receive medical attention faster than they typically would in the ER. Plus, a trip to our office is affordable whereas an ER visit can lead to thousands of dollars in medical bills.

When to visit our urgent care clinic

Some of the most common reasons that we treat local children are:

• High fevers
• Earaches
• Sore throats
• Cuts that require stitches
• Being hurt in an accident
• Having the flu

These are just a few of the reasons that we regularly treat young patients. We recommend parents bring them to our office. We can treat nearly all health problems in our office refer to a specialist who can.

Visit our urgent care today

We treat our patients like family. We are caring, focused and available when our patients need us most. If you or your children need medical care, we encourage visiting our office to receive it.