Surviving AmericanSurviving
American Medicine
Unscheduled urgent or emergency care is becoming more common. It is considered unscheduled because it is between the office visits your doctor has scheduled.
In an important report by doctors K. Kocher and B. Asplin (Annals of Internal Medicine volume 158, page 908, 2013), 30% of outpatient visits in the United States are for unscheduled care which occurs either urgent care centers, emergency rooms, at emergency visits with your own physician, or an emergency visit with another doctor. Of unscheduled visits, only 40% are with the patient’s own personal physician. 30% of urgent or emergency visits are at emergency rooms, and the others are accommodated at urgent care centers or at retail clinics.
The problem facing patients is, when an acute problem occurs, where will you go to get that problem resolved? The first phone call is usually to the physician’s office and the physician will often direct you an emergency room or an urgent care center, or will make room in the office to evaluate you. However, with the increasing burden of more patients and fewer physicians, there is less and less time at a physician’s office to provide that urgent unscheduled care.
My recommendations for you in this time of healthcare reform are:
- When you are feeling well, discuss with your physician where you should go if you have an emergency.
- Discuss with the physician which emergency room the doctor prefers to use.
- Discuss with the physician if there might be time in the office for the doctor or nurse to evaluate you on an emergency basis, and when is that usually possible.
- Find out from the doctor if there are urgent care centers or retail clinics in the area that the physician feels confident in having you use.
When an emergency occurs you have very little time to consider where you will be going for that care. Furthermore, in that setting it is hard to make decisions on a moment-to-moment basis, because you are under considerable stress. It is much better to be able to know in advance where your physician wants you to be evaluated, and how you can get the fastest service possible.
For my discussion on using emergency rooms and
Emergency care is important, but where do you go?
hospitals, see my new book, “Surviving American Medicine.”
