Urgent Care vs Emergency Room vs suck it up and stop whining
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Last night's shift has prompted me to share the following rant/public service message.
Emergency Room: This is where you go if you think you are going to die or lose a limb. These are true emergencies (hence the name). If you are having a heart attack, stroke, really bad asthma attack, chopped your own leg off at the thigh with your chainsaw. Do not attempt to drive yourself there. Call an ambulance.
Urgent Care: This is where you go for something that is urgent (hence the name) but not life threatening. A broken bone, a bad cut that won't stop bleeding (less than chainsaw-level severity), mild food poisoning, a UTI that isn't going to kill you but is a 3,968 on a pain scale of 1 to 10. You will get the same care here that you get in an ER, only at about 1/3 the cost and 1/3 the wait time, and you're not hogging a stretcher that should be going to the guy in line behind you with his intestines hanging out of the gash on his belly. If the Urgent Care staff determine that you really belong in an ER, they will transfer you there.
If you think you are going to die, do not go to the Urgent Care. You are a little more urgent than that.
If you stubbed your toe, or have the sniffles, you do not need to go to the Urgent Care nor the Emergency Room. Book a regular doctor's office appointment, if you must, and stop being a baby. If you have insurance, you are driving up everyone's premiums by running up a 4K ER bill for your goddamn sniffles. Do not go ahead and run up as big a bill as you want, and shrug and say "insurance is paying for it". That is male bovine feces. We are all paying for it. This is why so many of us can't afford health insurance- and of those of us who can, we are paying half our income for policies that exclude everything. If you do not have insurance, we the working taxpayers are footing your 4K ER visit for your goddamn sniffles. Please don't. You are a self-centered, dead-weight wuss, and if you really do die from your hangnail, you deserve it.
Things to not trifle with: chest pain, unexplained numbness (especially down one side of the body), drooping of half the face, unfamiliar severe headache, serious burns (esp to the hands), slurring of words, unexplained mental confusion, unexplained severe weakness or dizziness, serious cuts or other trauma injuries to the hands, face or genitals. Trauma to the spine. Concussions. Drug or alcohol overdoses (yes, it is possible to overdose and DIE on alcohol). Diabetic emergencies. Go to the ER. Any pustule or other skin break where it looks like the tissue is being eaten away. Go to the Urgent Care. You are not being a baby.
(Note that this is not a complete and exhaustive list of what not to trifle with- just a few common examples. Use sense.)
The only thing that grates my cheese more than people who go to the ER for stupid shit is people who sit at home and gush blood from both ends for days, then decide that it might be a good idea to mosey into the Urgent Care with a hemoglobin of 2.6 (TWO POINT SIX!!!! Jesus Wept!) just in time to go tits-up amongst the potted plants in the lobby.
I hate going to the doctor at all (self-employed, no insurance), but I am smart enough to know when I should and shouldn't (very nice summary of that, btw). I know people who think every little ache and pain merits immediate medical intervention! I have only called an ambulance, or been to the emergency room, one time in my life, and that is when my husband had an seizure. Thankfully he was fine, but I think we're *still* paying for it.
ReplyDeleteColds! *COLDS*, for cripe's sake. Hello- there is no cure for the common cold. It will probably not kill you. Take some OTC's for the symptoms and wait it out. Yet people go scampering off to the doctor and demand antibiotics. Hence the rise of resistant-to-everything bugs. Arrrgh!!!
ReplyDeleteAt least they made the lobby, it's worse when they don't make it in and get stuck in the revolving door. The motors that helps the door rotate can't deal with that kind of dead weight.
ReplyDeleteWe had one croak in the bushes outside last year.
ReplyDeleteHysterical and (sadly) relevant. Plan on reposting soon with a link back.
ReplyDeleteThanks for naming some of the differences with urgent care kissimmee fl being one of them. I appreciate your willingness to clearly inform your public!
ReplyDeleteIt's important to ask the urgent care clinic nearest you to see what services they provide, if you will be seen by a physician and how much they cost before an emergency strikes.
ReplyDeleteI don't trust the accuracy of Urgent Care at all. I went there after school as during football a kid stepped on my wrist. They X-ray'd it told me nothing was wrong only swollen from being stepped on and they sent me home with a cd with my x-rays on it. When I got home I took a look at the x-rays on my laptop and noticed what looked to me as a Crack in my wrist. So after complaining to my parent to take me to a specialist they did and it turns out I broke the growth plate in my wrist and spent 8 weeks in a cast that covered past my elbow. I'm 15 and noticed something wrong that a so called doctor that urgent care hired didn't.
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