When Is Urgent Care Necessary?

Getting the medical care you need can be tricky. When symptoms crop up, it might be days — or even weeks — before your primary care physician can get you in for an appointment. That means hoping things clear up on their own, waiting and suffering with your symptoms, or visiting an emergency room and dealing with the long wait and resulting financial stress of that potentially pricey care. 

Fortunately, those aren’t your only options. With urgent care, you can see a medical professional the same day. In fact, that’s precisely why our dedicated team is here at our SmartClinic Urgent Care clinics in West Covina and Santa Clarita, California.

When should you come in to use our services? To help you understand, this blog looks at how urgent care works and some common situations when you might benefit from choosing to visit our clinics.

Urgent care 101

Urgent care is exactly what it sounds like: medical care that you can access when you have an urgent need. 

That’s different from emergency care. The main thing that separates the two is the threat to your life. If an illness or injury needs treatment today but isn’t necessarily life-threatening, urgent care is a perfect fit. If the problem could be fatal, you should go to an emergency room right away.

At our urgent care clinics, you get access to a robust selection of medical treatments. We can address unexplained aches and pains, sudden-onset illnesses, injuries, and more. 

Many people think that choosing urgent care means waiting all day for your appointment. We do offer walk-in appointments at our clinics, which may mean waiting depending on how busy we are that day, but we also allow you to schedule your appointment in advance by calling our office. That way, you can get the care you need without taking too much time from your day. 

When to go to urgent care

So, when is urgent care necessary? If something isn’t really bothering you and can wait, it’s fine to make an appointment with your primary care physician. If something is life-threatening, you should go to the emergency room. For everything in between, there’s urgent care. Here are a few examples.

Sprained ankles

Walking on a sprained ankle can make your injury worse, so this isn’t a problem you should wait to treat. At SmartClinic Urgent Care, we can diagnose your ankle injury and identify its severity. That way, we can apply the proper treatment to protect your ankle and help it heal. 

Cold and flu symptoms

If you have flu or cold symptoms and it’s going to take you a number of days to get into your primary care physician, the odds are high that you’ll be feeling better by the time your appointment rolls around. And that means suffering through the worst of it without anything to ease your symptoms.

With urgent care, that changes. We treat sore throats, the flu, bronchitis, and more here at our clinics. 

Urinary tract infections (UTIs)

If you have a urinary tract infection, you want to get treatment — and relief from your discomfort — as quickly as possible. Our urgent care team can diagnose your UTI and prescribe the right treatment, whether that’s an antibiotic, antiviral medication, or something else. Our goal is to help you start feeling better as quickly as possible. 

Whenever you need same-day medical attention for anything that’s not life-threatening, our team of urgent care specialists can help. Walk into a SmartClinic Urgent Care clinic or call ahead to schedule your appointment.