When To Visit Urgent Care vs. the ER During the Holidays

Back in 2012, the US Consumer Product and Safety Commission reported that 15,000 people went to the emergency room in November and December because of accidents related to holiday decorating. Whether tumbling due to decking the halls or catching the flu at large gatherings, ERs can be busy places over the holidays.

For most everyday accidents and illnesses, a better choice during this busy season may be urgent care, which can be an oasis of calm compared to a bustling ER.

Here at Temecula Medical Group, Dr. Richard Rawson, along with Ryan D Rowan, PA-C, Armanda L Alvarez, FNP-C, and the rest of our team, offer comprehensive urgent care services to handle a wide range of holiday mishaps and illnesses.

Here’s a look at when urgent care makes better sense than emergency care.

Urgent versus emergency care

The words “urgent” and “emergency” may be quite similar, but in the context of medical care, there’s a key difference. An emergency room is designed to handle life-threatening medical conditions, such as a heart attack or a severe wound that’s bleeding profusely.

Urgent care centers, like ours, are ideal for handling issues that can’t wait for a regular appointment but aren’t life-threatening. Some examples include:

• Minor burns and lacerations
• Minor sprains and fractures
• Colds and flus
• Ear infections
• Gastrointestinal issues, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea
• Urinary tract infections

This list is by no means comprehensive, but it gives you a better idea of some of the more common reasons why our patients seek our urgent care.

Personalized and prompt care

Each year in the United States, there are 130 million visits to ERs across the country, which averages out to more than 356,000 visits per day. 

Under normal circumstances, ERs are busy places, and most are attached to busy hospitals with a dizzying number of departments and personnel. This means that there can be considerable wait times — to get in, to get imaging, to get lab results, and so on.

If you add in the uptick in visits that typically occurs around the holidays, your wait times can extend even further.

At our urgent care clinic, there’s little to no wait time, and you’ll have the full attention of a small team of providers that all know how to multitask to get you the care you need.

Tending to your needs in-house

One of the appeals of going to an ER is its access to all of the services you need. At our practice, our in-house services include all of the necessary tools to handle non-life-threatening emergencies, including X-rays, lab testing, and rapid testing for COVID-19.

Affordable care

If you’re part of our concierge program, your urgent care visit is often part of your program, which means you don’t incur any additional costs.

If you’re not part of our concierge program, we accept people with HMO and PPO insurance plans. 

If you’d like to learn more about our urgent care and whether we can handle your particular needs, contact us today at our office in Temecula, California.