Why is urgent care so good for seniors? Read on to discover some of the main reasons that it's good to situate an urgent care center where a large group of senior citizens or elderly patients can utilize it.
Urgent care is great for all ages—it provides a kind of middle ground between an ER experience and an outpatient family doctor visit. But seniors can really use urgent care centers in a range of situations in order to save money and time when accessing local health systems.
False Alarms
Not every symptom of a major medical event actually represents a life-threatening situation. Certain types of heart symptoms, for instance, can be entirely benign, or may not require immediate medical intervention. In these cases, urgent care can be a great way to get patients through a health care office, to help them understand whether they need more care or not.
Flu and Virus
Viruses can also do a lot of damage to an elderly person's body. You hear notices about protecting children and senior citizens from things like influenza. However, when it's time for medical care, senior patients may only need very basic services. Urgent care is a great way to just check up on someone's health if they're suffering from an unusually aggressive virus. For instance, urgent care centers can easily rehydrate patients, counsel them about their symptoms, and check their vital signs.
Screening
Most urgent care centers don't have a lot of screening equipment and resources, but they can be a way to help doctors look for the beginning signs of disease. For example, an urgent care center can be an effective place to get initial input on a dangerous-looking skin mole or some other type of visual symptom.
Panic and Anxiety
Some patients just need a little reassurance. They're convinced something is happening to them, although in reality, it isn't. Seniors are not immune from these types of mental health conditions, and in a lot of cases, urgent care is going to be the least costly and most expedient way to treat something that you might call a 'psychosomatic illness' or 'hypochondria visit.'
These are some of the services that an urgent care center can provide to senior citizens, as well as to others in the community. When these centers are closely situated nearby nursing homes and other elderly care facilities, it makes it easy for aging patients to get what they need, without trying to arrange transportation to a hospital, or to their family doctor.
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