Sometimes you get sick, but with same-day care we can address your acute illness at the same place you get your primary care. It’s always better to be seen by your regular doctor for urgent issues, since they have a much better sense of your health history than a walk-in urgent care center. I will always do my best to see patients for a same-day visit when they have a sudden illness.
For urgent care needs, we’ll have a shorter visit that focuses just on the acute issue. It’s not a time to get chronic medication refills, follow up on unrelated concerns, or start on new preventive screening tests. Once you’re feeling better we’ll get back to those things, but when you’re coming in for a same-day acute appointment, please be prepared to address just your current illness.
This doesn’t mean I can’t address your head cold during a normally-scheduled visit, but if your primary concern is for a sudden illness, we’ll need to focus on that problem to get you feeling better ASAP.
The clinics I work at aren’t hospitals with on-site labs and imaging. This means that if we need immediate lab results or imaging, you will need to be referred to a higher level of care for further evaluation. If I am worried you have a condition that needs emergent treatment I will ask that you go to and emergency department. If that happens I will call the hospital you are going to and let them know you’re on the way, and what I found at our visit.
