When to Go to Immediate Care vs. the Emergency Room

We’ve all seen those dra­mat­ic moments on TV med­ical shows — some injuries are real, oth­ers wild­ly exag­ger­at­ed. But what they don’t show is how to decide whether to head to the emer­gency room or an imme­di­ate care cen­ter (also known as urgent care). So when you’ve acci­den­tal­ly cut your­self or your stom­ach is stag­ing a full-scale rebel­lion, you might not know where to go. 

In some cas­es, you already know the drill. Any­thing life-threat­en­ing requires a trip to the emer­gency room ASAP, while a stub­born stuffy nose is unlike­ly to need life­sav­ing treat­ment. It’s the in-betweens that get a lit­tle trickier. 

Here’s what your favorite med­ical show prob­a­bly isn’t telling you about when to go to imme­di­ate care vs. when to go to the emer­gency room.

Imme­di­ate Care or Emer­gency Room: Mak­ing the Choice

There are sev­er­al ques­tions to ask your­self before mak­ing a decision.

Ques­tion #1: How bad are my symptoms?

One of the most impor­tant things to con­sid­er when choos­ing between imme­di­ate and emer­gency care is your symp­toms.

Imme­di­ate care is great for minor health con­cerns that are not life-threat­en­ing. Con­sid­er imme­di­ate care if you have:

• Closed frac­tures (bro­ken bones where your skin is still intact)
• Diges­tive issues, like vom­it­ing, diar­rhea, or mild to mod­er­ate stom­ach pain
• Ill­ness­es like sore throats, ear infec­tions, or sinus infec­tions or cough, cold, and flu symptoms
• Injuries like sprains, strains, or minor cuts
• Mild aller­gic reactions
• Mild dehy­dra­tion
• Pneu­mo­nia
• Skin con­di­tions like rash­es, minor burns, skin infec­tions, or insect bites
• Uri­nary tract infections

The emer­gency room is for life-threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tions like heart attack or stroke. Get to the emer­gency room or call 9−1−1 imme­di­ate­ly if you experience:

• Chest pain or pressure
• Dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing or short­ness of breath
• Head or spine injury
• Large wounds or an open frac­ture (when a bro­ken bone is stick­ing out through your skin)
• Seizures
• Severe aller­gic reaction
• Severe stom­ach pain, espe­cial­ly with fever
• Sud­den and severe weak­ness, headache, or inabil­i­ty to move
• Sud­den vision loss
• Symp­toms of a stroke, like sud­den weak­ness or numb­ness (espe­cial­ly on one side of your body), sud­den con­fu­sion, or dif­fi­cul­ty speaking
• Uncon­trolled bleeding

Ques­tion #2: Can my symp­toms wait?

When you’re in the throes of a nasty stom­ach bug, it can feel like treat­ment can’t wait – but in most cas­es, a bout of throw­ing up and a mild stom­achache doesn’t need emer­gency care.

At the same time, the oppo­site prob­lem can hap­pen. If your symp­toms are severe or intense, avoid the temp­ta­tion to tough it out and see where it goes. For instance, if you tend to have a high pain tol­er­ance, you might think that a very bad stom­achache is some­thing you can just wait out. How­ev­er, it could actu­al­ly be a sign of some­thing more seri­ous or even life-threat­en­ing, like a burst appen­dix.

In gen­er­al, imme­di­ate care cen­ters are not open 24 hours. So if you have symp­toms, ask your­self if they tru­ly can wait until an imme­di­ate care cen­ter opens.

South Bend Clinic’s Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ters are open on evenings and week­ends. You can choose to walk in at your con­ve­nience. Find an Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ter near you.

Ques­tion #3: What caused my symptoms?

It’s not always pos­si­ble to know what brought on your symp­toms or how you got hurt. But if you do know, that can make a dif­fer­ence as to where you go for care.

Some exam­ples of times when you need emer­gency care include:

• A head injury that causes:
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing or balancing
  • Headache that gets con­tin­u­ous­ly worse
  • Loss of consciousness
  • One pupil to appear big­ger than the other
  • Seizures
  • Severe con­fu­sion, such as not rec­og­niz­ing peo­ple or places
  • Severe dizzi­ness
  • Slurred speech
  • Vom­it­ing more than one time
  • Watery and clear dis­charge from your ears or nose, or bleed­ing from your ears
  • Weak­ness, tin­gling, or numb­ness in your legs or arms

• A back or neck injury that causes:
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing or stand­ing up
  • Head or body to be in an unusu­al or unnat­ur­al position
  • Headache, neck pain, or neck stiff­ness that won’t go away
  • Inabil­i­ty to move your arms or legs
  • Loss of blad­der or bow­el control
  • Numb­ness or tin­gling sen­sa­tions radi­at­ing through your arms or legs
  • Symp­toms of shock (pale and clam­my skin, gray or blue lips or fin­ger­nails, dazed or semi-con­scious appearance)
  • Uncon­scious­ness
  • Weak­ness in your neck, back, or limbs

• An injury from a gun­shot or a severe car accident
• A reac­tion that occurs after eat­ing some­thing you know you have a life-threat­en­ing aller­gy to, such as peanuts

The Ben­e­fits of Imme­di­ate Care

If your symp­toms or injury are not life-threat­en­ing, but you’re still weigh­ing your options, think about the oth­er ben­e­fits of choos­ing imme­di­ate care.

Imme­di­ate care vis­its typ­i­cal­ly cost sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than emer­gency room ones. In fact, going to the emer­gency room can cost you 5 to 10 times more than it would cost you to go to an imme­di­ate care cen­ter.

They are also a great mid­dle ground when you need care soon­er than you can get an appoint­ment with your provider but don’t need emer­gency care.

Con­ve­nience is also a key rea­son why you may want to choose imme­di­ate care. Imme­di­ate care cen­ters might not be open ²⁴⁄₇, but they often have evening, week­end, and ear­ly morn­ing hours. They usu­al­ly have much short­er wait times, and many allow you to sched­ule an appoint­ment so you’re not spend­ing too much time in the wait­ing room. And with sev­er­al loca­tions, you may be much clos­er to an imme­di­ate care cen­ter than you are to an emer­gency room.

Also read: Know­ing Where to Go for Care: The South Bend Clin­ic Imme­di­ate Care Centers

The Final Verdict

Imme­di­ate care cen­ters can be front and cen­ter when it comes to get­ting care that can’t wait. But at the end of the day, the most impor­tant thing is to stay safe. If you feel like your life is in dan­ger, don’t hes­i­tate to get the emer­gency care you need.