Welcome back to Urgent Care Unscripted. My name is Barbara Reynolds. Here I am the director of operations and business development for AFC Urgent Care. And this is Mohammad Salman and the franchise here on earth devastated. And today we want to talk about, urgent care versus emergency room. More precisely, when you have some kind of an illness and you're trying to decide where to go, should I go to an urgent care or, emergency room? We want to talk about that.
And what are the most common scenarios that, we face when you're making when you're trying to make that decision? Yeah. Today we're joined by Doctor Felix Pacheco. He is our medical director and also a veteran E.R. physician. So welcome, doctor Pacheco. Hello. Thank you for having me. I would like to add, you know, a lot of, patient complaints. I've seen emergency departments that can adequately be handled.
And as you can see them, you know, think about your your pulse, your springs, if you ever walk on it and you would be fine. You could probably see an urgent care. Got it. And so these are some of the scenarios that you just mentioned, opportunities that are not complex enough for people to warrant an urgent, emergency, visit, I guess, right?
Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell, but either way, I'll providers could make an assessment fairly quickly and determine whether or not, you know, a higher level of care is necessary. That's great. I think one point is to think about, is this a straightforward case? Is it going to require, you know, an MRI or a cat scan? Obviously not every patient knows that. But it's good to call. You can always call us and we can at least guide you one way or another.
Yeah. So once the patient has actually arrived, saved the patient has made the choice to come to an urgent care. How do we how does the provider make that distinction? Should they give us the decision actually, to an urgent.
So this is the, the issue is, evaluation and how the patient appears, you know, you know, getting vital signs makes it even more objective, getting, you know, a blood pressure or heart rate, temperature and such, that, you know, laying eyes on the patient to see how much they structure it. That's said, some things are going to be difficult.
If you're coming in from a trauma that, you know, maybe hasn't fully manifested yet, you know, maybe you have some internal bleeding that is, identified, it may be stable because you're getting healthy and you work out, you know, you may be like that for a while, and then you manifest later, by somebody, you know, getting a history, determining the severity of the injury.
And, you know, making the best judgment as to whether or not that needs to be seen in person, in an emergency setting or in the urgent care setting, and would also is a risk assessment, right? So if you have a patient who is a little bit older, who has diabetes, heart disease, those are things that we take into account before we make the decision of we're going to treat you here versus we're going to send you out to the emergency room 100% completely.
But any assessment requires a, risk assessment of the patient. You know, how old you are, how many, comorbidities, how many, you know, illnesses they might have. You know, that changes the, presentation of illness and the types of diseases they may be susceptible to. So just sounds like it's not like a very straightforward decision. For the provider, they have to go through, diagnosis.
They have to, hear out what the condition of from the patient and do some tests and then maybe make that call, like, okay, yes, we can treat that patient here. Or, you know, it is, in a, in a stage or condition that is advanced diagnosis and so forth. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of gray, and we try to keep this simple, you know, if you have, like a ten year old, they got cut, playing with like, a little, a little knife or something and just have a small laceration to a finger, you know?
And it's very deep. Right? Then you have a high speed, you know, car accident. They have rolled over and the piece into the hands of the patient will have their seatbelt on, and they lost consciousness. You know, those are kind of the examples where one very easily can be dealt with. Yeah. And the other not. One thing that I see too, with, when it comes to lacerations, at least from the provider's perspective, is having, you know, face lacerations.
At the end of the day, if you want that to be done by a surgeon or, you know, like a plastic surgeon, you're going to have a scar. If you get have done it, we can do it. But you might have a little bit of a scar that is not so nice to look at. And most cars are not going to have a plastic surgeon trail they can repair, but they may have some other, surgical specialties that may make the, wound look nicer. So that that is true.
I mean, depends on the complexity of the illness and the concern the patient may have regarding your custom pieces. You know, you know how much it affected looks. One thing that I, also wanted to mention and just mentioned for the patients here is, you know, your body better than anybody. So if you feel like you should go to the emergency room, do that for sure. You know, like you and again, we have, people on site, if you're unsure. The benefit of urgent care is, ease of access.
Yeah. Time. And time is a big one. We tend to be able to see patients within an hour of their arrival, potentially even have the patient discharged within an hour of arrival. Obviously, it, though, depends on how busy it is. But either way, in an emergency department setting and then the time of year, you know, you'd be lucky. Happy to see you within two hours, usually, or ten times longer than that. So time, please, will, make sure you know how much you pay in your copay.
You know that obviously there are some motivations from the insurance perspective regarding change, a patient's urgent care versus versus primary care. But either way, there's, a cost, to that, that patient depending on the carrier. But at the end of the day, like at our urgent care in West Haven. Yes, in this state and I would say any urgent care and, patient's health, that interest is the top and only priority, would have to say. Right. Their health is the priority.
Nothing else really matters from just a human perspective and also from a legal perspective. If you have a condition that's not within our scope, we will be in trouble to try to do anything about it. And it would be best served for us as well as for you. When we refer you to a, emergency room instead of trying to tackle it at the urgent care. So that's not something bad for you that we could not or failed, quote unquote, to treat.
You have the urgent care that we offered you to the emergency room. That's for your best interests. And we would do that often when we see that that's the condition that needs to be treated. And it's you need to recover and it's for your best interest that you should go to an audience, you know, so you're welcome to come here. But then we will also make the best decision that suits your needs to this. Yeah. Definitely. Health in mind first. And this is where we have to, adjust.
Maybe the patient's expectations. Yeah. You know, they, you know, maybe thought it was minor. And then we find out that is something that is a little bit more than we can handle. And, you know, we want to make sure you have the best outcome. You know what? You, to be able to walk again, you know, be able to see us again, you have to be happy with the care you receive. And it would be, a problem for everyone if, you know, an emergency was attempted to be treated in a non-emergency setting.
Yeah. Okay. Resources. Absolutely. And coming from somebody that has worked with hundreds of providers in an urgent care setting, I can definitely say that if we're sending you to the emergency room, it's because that provider really can or already did the best that they could for you in that situation. It's not because they don't want to treat you. It's not because they don't want to, you know, do whatever it is that you need to do. It's it's really for the best.
So just just trust the process is what I'll say. Yeah. It's always kind of interesting because, you know, it can be a fairly straightforward evaluation on a patient, you know, that depending on the patient expectation, and, you know, it's taken easily or not. So, yeah, that's a role to take, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, providers are humans. So at the end of the day, some may have more capabilities and others do comfortability.
I think it's a big thing too within the provider network system. So just keep that in mind as well. I yeah. You touch on the point. The provider some are greater. Risk takers. I'm not concerned, but I'm willing to take on more responsibility, you know, you know, and everybody's a little bit different. So each provider, you know, may make a different assessment with the same patient depending on how much each wants to be able to have that condition. Yeah. You guys are not robots.
So And actually, one thing I forgot to mention, the severity of the pain, also plays a role, right? So one can argue that kidney stones are a, a life threatening condition most of the time, but the severity of the pain is difficult to manage in your care setting. So, you know, if you have, like, severe pain, that can be great in your care setting as well. Yeah, absolutely. Trust your instincts and don't hesitate to call.
Don't hesitate to call your local urgent care us and say this is what I'm feeling. Should I come here? Should I go to the emergency room? We'll do the best to kind of guide you ahead of time and again. We might say, come and see us. We'll try to assess you. And if it's something that we can't do, we will send you to the emergency room as needed. Thank you so much, Felix, for joining us today. That was some really insightful information. I think our patients will definitely appreciate it.
Thank you. See you next time. Stay informed and stay safe and subscribe to us and gifted. We look forward to seeing you again for the next episode. Yep. And keep in mind we are located at 354 Sawmill Road in West Haven. Come see us anytime you need us. Thank you. Bye.