Pennsylvania

505 Urgent Care Centers

Emergency rooms are the most expensive way for people to receive medical care. While it's difficult to determine exactly how much money patients could save by using urgent care centers instead of ERs, the numbers show that, in some cases, an ER can cost ten times as much as using an urgent care center. This is a serious concern for Pennsylvanians.

Understanding Health in Pennsylvania

About 16 percent of people in Pennsylvania live below the poverty line. That might sound bad, but it gets even worse when one looks at individual cities. More than 40 percent of residents in Reading, PA live below the poverty level, earning it the unfortunate distinction as one of America's poorest cities. Such a high rate of poverty makes it nearly impossible for people to place an emphasis on preventative health. When a family has difficulty paying for food, nutrition, physical activity and immunizations become distant concerns.

After living with sickness for weeks or months, a person eventually has to visit the emergency room for treatment. Since the ER cannot turn them away, many of those high-priced services get passed on to taxpayers. Those preventable health conditions also clog emergency rooms.

Urgent Care in Pennsylvania

Giving communities access to urgent care centers could significantly lower the number of unnecessary ER visits, even in poor towns like Reading. Pennsylvania urgent care centers charge lower rates than emergency rooms, but they offer comparable services to people who need basic medical treatment. In fact, recent studies have shown that as much as 50 percent of the conditions treated at emergency rooms could be handled less expensively at urgent care centers. That said, if your condition is life threatening, it is important to call 911 or visit your closest emergency room.

Walk-in Clinics in Pennsylvania

To assist with minor injuries and illnesses, as well as the preventative health topics and immunizations discussed previously, Pennsylvania residents also have a number of other walk-in clinic options available to them. Retail clinics, while not offering on-site physicians or x-ray and other diagnostic services, are excellent solutions minor healthcare needs. You can typically find them inside pharmacies like Walgreens or CVS or even large retail stores like Walmart or even grocery stores. They are generally less expensive than an urgent care and offer similar hours.

Additionally, Pennsylvania has a number of walk-in community clinics offering discounts to low-income families, and sometimes even feature free services, such as vaccinations.

Specific urgent care and walk-in clinic services available in may include STD testing flu shots, school physicals and many other valuable services