What
is Urgent Care Medicine?
The urgent care specialty is a comparatively
new hybrid in the field of ambulatory
(outpatient) medicine and is part of a
growing trend in this country for healthcare
providers to offer more affordable
alternatives to crowded hospital settings by
meeting patient demands of convenience and
efficiency, while delivering safer, higher
quality medical care.
Our urgent care facility is open seven days
a week with convenient daytime and evening
hours for patients seeking immediate
treatment for minor illnesses and injuries
as well as a wide variety of diagnostic and
screening services including basic lab and
x-rays. In our urgent care centers, patients
can be seen and treated, often in less than
an hour, for injuries like minor
lacerations, sprains, simple fractures,
animal bites, sports injuries and other
discomforts like sore throats, earaches,
asthma attacks, migraines, urinary tract
infections or the flu. You do not need an
appointment to use an Physicians Immediate
Care Medical Center.
Most, if not all, Physicians Immediate Care
Medical Center's services are offered at a
dramatic savings to patients, employers,
insurance companies and other healthcare
consumers over the costs of hospital
emergency departments or hospital based
"fast-track" services.
Return
to top
What's in an Urgent Care Center?
Our urgent care center differs from a
typical primary care physician’s office in
that it has procedure rooms for stitching
lacerations and splinting bone fractures, a
radiology department for X-ray services and
other diagnostic imaging equipment, and a
laboratory for onsite lab tests like quick
strep tests, tetanus shots, cholesterol
tests and other blood work. We provide
breathing treatments, high blood pressure
stabilization, ear lavage and IV therapy. We
also do school and work physicals,
immigration physicals, DOT physicals and
other examination services.
Our urgent care center also offers
on-the-job injury evaluation services to
surrounding businesses and industries,
hotels, restaurants, and other corporate
entities. We provide a wide range of
occupational medicine services, including
pre-employment physicals, drug screens, and
Work Comp Back-to-Work programs.
In short, we are ER professionals in a
private setting. Although we can stabilize
many illnesses, such as diabetes, asthma,
hypertension and other diseases of aging,
our urgent care facility is not designed to
provide long term management of them. We do
not accept ambulance traffic such as motor
vehicle accidents, heart attacks and
strokes.
Return
to top
What can I expect at Physicians Immediate
Care?
Physicians Immediate Care Medical Center is
staffed with a highly qualified team of
licensed physicians, physician assistants
and nurse practitioners. Most physicians are
board certified in Emergency Medicine or
Family Practice Medicine and have many years
of training and experience in dealing with a
wide range of health problems. Our
physicians and our physician extenders are
dedicated to providing you excellent medical
care in a caring, respectful manner.
Return
to top
What happens when I leave the Urgent Care
Center?
You will be given complete discharge
instructions and notified about any abnormal
lab work or X-rays. With your permission, a
record of your treatment will also be faxed
to your primary care physician, who can
provide any necessary follow-up care. If you
desire, any prescriptions the medical staff
have ordered can be relayed to your pharmacy
ahead of time, so that they may be ready by
the time you reach your pharmacy.
Return
to top
What forms of insurance and payment do you
accept?
Physicians Immediate Care Medical Center
offers reasonable clinic rates. We accept
most health plans, cash, personal checks,
and all major credit cards. We use a simple
fee for service system, accepting cash,
credit card and most private insurance.
Payment of fees for Physicians Immediate
Care Medical Centers' services is due on the
date that service is provided. We make every
effort to be a participating provider with
as many insurance carriers as possible. Even
when we are not contracted with your
insurance carrier, we'll still see you and
provide you with the necessary paperwork to
return to your insurance carrier for
reimbursement.
Work-related Injuries: If your illness or
injury did arise out of or occurred in the
course of your employment, you should
provide this information to the front desk
staff at the time of your first visit to
initiate billing of your Workers
Compensation carrier.
Return
to top
Will my insurance cover at Physicians
Immediate Care Medical Centers?
We are providers for CCN, United HealthCare,
Web TPA; Beech Street Network,
Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield,
Medicare, Coventry and most other major
insurance companies - we even accept most
Canadian insurance. Even when we are not
contracted with your insurance carrier,
we'll still see you and provide you with the
necessary paperwork to return to your
insurance carrier for reimbursement. Call
today to see if we are covered by your plan!
Not only do most insurance companies pay for
services rendered at an urgent care center,
most actually encourage their use through
the use of lowered co-payments for urgent
care centers as opposed to emergency
departments. That's because most insurance
companies now recognize the significant cost
savings benefit of the urgent care center
over hospital based services.
Return
to top
Why Physicians Immediate Care Urgent Care
Centers?
No Appointment Necessary. Open Evenings and
Weekends.
studies show that fewer than 20 percent of
the population even have what they could
call a personal physician. Of those who do,
less than 12 percent of the people who need
a doctor are able to get an appointment the
same day they need one. Lack of access to
the primary provider, or no relationship at
all with a primary care provider are both
factors which make the urgent care center an
attractive alternative to scheduling an
appointment with a primary care physician
when episodic health care is needed.
At Physicians Immediate Care Urgent Care
Center, our patients appreciate getting top
quality medical care during our convenient
hours, 365 days a year, open evenings and
weekends, with no appointments necessary.
Relaxed, Healing Environment. No Long Waits!
In a recent survey by the Schumacher Group,
one out of every six hospital administrators
admitted they would not use their own
hospital's emergency department should they
be injured!
In St. Lucie County noisy, crowded hospital
emergency rooms, consumers with minor
injuries are forced to wait for hours in
discomfort while overworked medical staff
focus their attention on the sickest
patients – car accident/trauma injuries,
stroke, heart attack victims, psychiatric
patients and nursing home transfers.
According to the latest CDC survey, the
average patient spends three hours in the
emergency department! Recent studies show
this situation is worsening. Visits to
emergency rooms in the United States are up
20 percent over the past decade, even while
the number of emergency departments has
shrunk by 15 percent.1 During the same time
period, the waiting time for non-critical
visits increased by 33 percent.
Numerous studies have now shown that 70 and
80 percent of all emergency room visits are
of a non-critical nature and could be
handled in a less costly urgent care
setting.
Return
to top
Where will you go with your next injury?
At Physicians Immediate Care Medical Center,
we offer a clean, comfortable and state of
the art healing environment where most
patients are seen, treated and released in
less than an hour.
And No Inflated Emergency Room Bills! About
half of all emergency services go
uncompensated, according to CMS. Who makes
up the difference?
YOU DO! The average emergency department
bill is $850!
Hospitals have long been known for their
practice of covering their costs for charity
care and bad debt by inflating the charges
for their patients who pay. In the hospital
industry, this is known as "cost shifting".
While it's true that the practice of cost
shifting enables many uninsured individuals
to receive medical care, it implicitly
raises the costs of healthcare for those who
are insured and those who must pay out of
pocket. At Physicians Immediate Care urgent
care centers, we pledge never to raise the
price of your medical care to compensate for
other people who won't pay their bills! And
did you know hospital based "Fast Track" or
"Urgent Care" units use the same billing
system as the ER? Although they may be
quicker, they offer no cost savings over
traditional ER based expenses and are often
three to four times the cost of an urgent
care visit!
At Physicians Immediate Care Medical
Centers, we offer safe, conscientious
medical care of the non-life threatening
injury or illness. We use a simple fee for
service system, and our fees average from
one third to one fifth the cost of an
emergency room visit - with a much higher
level of attention than you would receive at
your local emergency room.
Return
to top
How
much is your time worth?
Seen promptly, most patients are treated and
released in less than an hour.
Your co-pay is half the price of most ER's!
Open evenings and weekends, 7 days a week.
High tech computer office system with new
Digital X-Ray reduces wait time.
Sprains, strains, and fractures x-rayed and
treated on the premises.
No appointment necessary.
Return
to top |
