Most patients prefer visiting an urgent care center in New York City rather than a traditional doctor’s office or a hospital emergency room for a number of reasons, according to Med-Rite Urgent Care owner Samuel Fisch. As Fisch explains, urgent care centers are an excellent option for people who cannot get into their primary care physician’s office – either because their medical situation needs immediate attention and they cannot wait, or because they need to know the results of an x-ray or a laboratory test right away.
Because Med-Rite Urgent Care has an on-site laboratory, the physicians who work at the New York City urgent care center can get tests back for patients much more quickly than at some doctors’ offices. Fisch also emphasizes that urgent care centers in New York City are not trying to compete with the city’s primary care physicians who are in private practice. Urgent care centers and private doctors’ offices are very different, and they cater to different needs, says Fisch.
One of the most common reasons why people come into Med-Rite Urgent Care – as opposed to their regular primary care physician’s office – is because they have gotten injured or sick at night or on a weekend, when most doctors’ offices are closed. Med-Rite Urgent Care has its own x-ray center, which means that patients who fear they may have injured themselves playing sports can come in and get treated right away.
When a patient comes into Med-Rite Urgent Care with an injured wrist or ankle, a board certified physician will perform a thorough examination and check for any signs of injury, says Fisch. Depending on the type of injury that is uncovered, the physician may recommend an x-ray. If this were to happen in a traditional doctor’s office, then Fisch says the patient would be referred to an outpatient x-ray center. After going to a separate facility to have the x-ray taken, he would then have to come back into his doctor’s office have the x-ray read by his physician.
At Med-Rite Urgent Care, a patient can complete all of these steps in one visit. Instead of going to three different places, Fisch says a patient can walk into Med-Rite Urgent Care and walk out with a diagnosis. This same benefit applies to patients who need immediate laboratory tests as well, since patients can come in for strep tests or STD tests and walk away with their results in hand.