Under the climate of today there appears to be a shift within the medical community and health insurance industry that is striving to bring down the high cost of medical care for all patients. While the State run health insurance exchanges are still a couple of years away from opening for business, there are urgent care centers today that are open and accepting patients. The urgent care centers, recognized by such vast institutions as Empire BlueCross healthy New York are operating efficiently and offering medical care and other advice to the patients that enter requesting medical services.
Unlike making an appointment with a medical physician and having to wait two weeks or longer depending on your particular ailment, the urgent care centers accept walk-ins and in general the wait time to be seen is a few hours. These urgent care centers are in no way competitive with the medical physician or the community hospital emergency room, but they are equipped to handle x-rays, intravenous intervention, suturing, and many other urgent care necessities.
The urgent care centers have been in most communities for a few years now, but remained under the radar until now. When the cost of health care helps to contribute with the reduction in health insurance provider remittance, this helps health insurance NY to continue offering lower medical costs that are passed on to all patients. When there is a life-threatening emergency, you the patient, will continue to be advised to visit with the local community hospital emergency room for medical assistance. Fortunately, this is not as common as you would think.
The majority of the urgent care centers are equipped to assist patients with non- life threatening situations. As a nationwide entity they are not equipped to handle emergency situations of a greater magnitude. However, healthy New York does discuss these issues with their subscribers with the intent to bring down the cost of medical health care for all patients. When you consider the eventual outcome of the enhancement of the urgent care centers it is enlightening in many respects.
The one point of concern for the patient is that the opportunity of visiting with a medical physician may be the trade-off for the reduction in the medical costs. In most cases, you will not visit with a medical physician, according to the healthy NY program. In most cases, you will visit with a registered nurse, a physician assistant, or a doctor of osteopathy.









