If you’ve ever had to wait hours in an emergency room before receiving treatment, you know how frustrating and exhausting it can be. Urgent care centers offer a convenient alternative to the ER, lowering your costs and improving your experience..

Urgent care visits are cheaper, faster and often easier to access than emergency room visits.

If you’re not feeling well and don’t have time to wait for a doctor’s appointment, or if your condition isn’t severe enough to warrant an ER visit, you can try an urgent care center. Urgent care centers are open at times when most doctors are closed, and they offer many of the same services as hospital emergency rooms but at a fraction of the cost. Visits typically cost $75 to $150 (as opposed to anywhere from $300-$900), and most patients are seen within 30 minutes or less of their arrival.

Urgent Care vs Emergency Rooms

Urgent care centers are designed to treat a wide range of illnesses and injuries. In fact, they can perform most of the same services as an emergency room, but at a much lower cost and with less waiting time. Urgent care centers are also more convenient because they’re open when it’s most convenient for you: weekends, evenings and holidays.

So if you need medical attention but aren’t feeling sick enough to warrant an emergency room visit (and don’t have health insurance), urgent care is likely your best option.

Urgent cares can help with:

• Minor cuts and abrasions
• Colds & flu
• Minor burns/contusions/sprains/strains (also called “soft tissue injuries”) * Asthma attacks

Urgent Care Centers have lower fees and provide fast medical treatment for non-life threatening conditions for less than the cost of an ER visit.

Urgent care centers are often open on weekends and after hours, making them a convenient resource for people who don’t have a family doctor or can’t afford to miss work.

Urgent care centers usually have shorter wait times than emergency rooms (ERs), so you won’t have to sit around waiting for hours as you would at an ER. As such, an urgent care visit is much cheaper than an ER visit: you can expect your total cost of treatment to be less than $100.

In addition, if your condition is non-life threatening but still concerning enough that it warrants medical attention—such as having difficulty breathing or nausea—an urgent care center could provide faster treatment without requiring a full examination from another doctor later on in addition to the one conducted by the urgent care center staff member who sees you when you first arrive.

If you’re looking for a less expensive alternative to the emergency room, urgent care is worth exploring. You might just be surprised by what you can find.