More patients seek treatment at urgent care centers: 6 things to know

More Americans head to urgent care centers for treatment, instead of visiting their primary care physicians, based on a NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll, according to npr.

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Here are six things to know:

1. Many patients find urgent care centers to be more convenient and faster than visiting primary care physicians for non-emergencies, according to the poll.

2. One in five people reported they weren’t able to see their primary care physicians when needed at least once in the past two years due to a lack of available appointments or closed offices.

3. Urgent care clinics offer patients a cheaper alternative than emergency rooms. ER visits may cost adults more than $1,000, according to a National Center for Health Statistics review.

4. Further, many patients do not have serious issues that require ER visits.

5. About 7,000 urgent care centers exist in the United States, and most are open in the evenings, on the weekends and holidays.

6. Of those polled, 75 percent reported their urgent care visits “excellent” or “good.”

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