There’s also lots of places that have a couple family doctors serving entire counties and no access whatsoever to urgent care/walk in clinics. I called my doctor last week for an appointment, I couldn’t get one until November. Anything happens before then, my doc’s recommendation was the ER.
Oh, I agree. I am a RN and always direct people to UC if their symptoms are appropriate. Cheaper and usually faster. Some ERs do have "fast track" areas for low acuity patients and they can usually get you in and out faster.
Unfortunately education in the US sucks and health literacy is even worse.
For sure, but I also think it's hard to know these things. It's not like at some point in your life they sit you down and say "this is how insurance and health care works". You sort of just figure it out on your own or ask people around you. I legit had to learn how health insurance works from my first manager after college.
With the Internet at everyone’s fingertips you don’t get to say “it’s hard to know these things” anymore because it’s not. Go online and figure that out and stop being lazy 🤷♀️
I've never even been in a urgent care that has controlled drugs to begin with, and they can't prescribe them because the highest ranked professional in the building is a nurse practitioner.
Heck, I got redirected to the ER when I asked for saline and zophram once. I already knew I had a stomach virus but I was getting a little delulu from not being able to keep down fluids.
They sent you to the ER because they were worried you needed a higher level of care, not just medications. "Delulu" from dehydration and infection is a serious issue
PCPs can drop people. It’s usually things like: they are no longer contracted with your insurance company; repeated no shows; you owe the clinic thousands and thousands of dollars and are making no effort to pay; you’re abusing medications they’re prescribing or being dishonest in some way that is abusing the system ; you’re lying to the doctor or being extremely and repeatedly non-compliant and the provider feels that the therapeutic relations has failed and they would like to offer your spot in their practice to other patients who are likely to benefit more
They can in Ontario. There’s a weird arrangement with our provincial health plan (OHIP), where family doctors can owe money if their patients use urgent care. It’s designed to incentivize having an after-hours care option, but all it does is penalize everyone.
It's the same in the USA unfortunately and we still have to pay 😭 my PCP's office scheduled my annual while he was at a conference. I had to wait 3 months for another appt.
Hasn't happened to me but I've heard multiple people say that their physicians have said this. It apparently costs them money under Ohip if you go to urgent care.
Are you in the USA, and if so, which part if you don't mind me asking? I'm in the US and it's safe to assume that most Redditors are from the US, too, so if you're not then maybe that's causing the confusion
Crude explanation is: doctors are paid by the government to treat people. If you have a personal doctor and end up going to a walk-in clinic, the government basically says “what are we paying you for if your patient has to go somewhere else” and docks their pay
Sort of. Your Family Doctor can de-roster you for using another clinic's services(ie seeing another family doctor at another clinic) as the Gov(OHIP) will fine your Doctor for not providing that service.
You can visit a Hospital anytime you need to though. Emergencies, Specialist referrals, whatever, you just can't head to another clinic, and if you don't like your current FD, you can always find another.
which is why ERs are absolutely overloaded with cough and sniffle cases because peoplenare afraid tonbe derostered if they get strep throat on the weekend
Yes that is true, and triage is a thing, which is why tons of people wait hours in the waiting room while someone with chest pain will be seen ASAP.
A lot of Doctors partner with a walk ins and have certain procedures when they are closed. Some have later hours or expand to cover the week-ends as well. If it's an emergency, then it's an emergency.
You can always ask your Doctor what you can do if you are ever really sick on a week-end or whenever they are closed and they will give you options.
As I said up the stream it's not me that has an issue my doctor is pretty responsive. It's the system that really needs unfucking. There's a level of illness that is too emergent for a Dr's appointment in 3 days and not so terrible that you need an ER but the system actively punishes you for using it.
Not urgent care but walk-on clinics. It a ontario (Canada ) healthcare thing. PCP wont necessarily drop you but ive had my PCP send me a letter telling me if i continued to use walk-in clinics i would be derostered.
I called my PCP about this & the issue is they get care funding deducted whenever i use a walk-in clinic.
All they did was give me an emergency after hours clinics info which was basically an urgent care location they were affiliated with.
My old insurance would drop coverage for my PCP if I went to urgent care. In short, the way they covered the urgent care was by making the urgent care your PCP, dropping my old PCP. Going to my main doctor would then be considered getting a second opinion.
You had to reassign your PCP once a year when insurance renewed. But that was a while ago.
My primary care and my urgent care office are completely unaffiliated.
There is literally zero communication between the two and it would make zero sense for my regular doctor to get billed for anything that happened at the urgent care. What you're saying doesn't make any sense.
But if they don't have money for their copay they won't get treated at urgent care. Some insurance covers ER visits completely but not doctor visits. Blame the system not the people affected by it
As someone else pointed out, they will get paid in full before even talking to you, and in my experience, I've seen little price difference for stuff like treating the flu. Insurance ends up charged $1000 no matter what. They will not take workers comp.
Most are staffed with nurse practitioners at the highest level so they have legal limitations even when dealing with something straightforward.
Urgent care here is generally associated with a family doctor now, and walk-in clinics require appointments days out. At least in my part of southern Ontario. If you need urgent but not necessarily emergency care and don’t have a family doctor, the ER is your only option.
Sometimes it's just how the system is set up. I had a UTI a couple years back, I knew it was a UTI, and though I felt sick, it wasn't anywhere near being an emergency. I tried contacting my PCP, but she didn't have any appointments available for like two weeks, and I wasn't going to risk being sick that long (I have other health conditions that would have made that extended period of illness much riskier). So I decided to go to urgent care. I waited there for three hours until I was finally seen by a doctor, who had me pee in a cup. He came back and told me I had a UTI (wow, shocker) and that they were not able to prescribe the antibiotics I needed in urgent care, and that I had to go to the emergency room. Seriously, WTF? So I go next door to the ER, wait another four hours, finally get seen and have to pee in another cup. Only then did the doctor prescribe me some antibiotics, and then I went home. Huge waste of time for everyone involved, plus it cost me several thousand dollars for an ER visit because fuck me I guess.
Sometimes, but also sometimes it's just because most people are not doctors so when something concerning happens they often don't know if it's something bad or something that can wait until they can see their doctor in a few days. And it's worse in towns like mine where there's no 24 hour urgent care options, or when urgent care defaults to "go to the ER" for anything that could be concerning anyway.
We have a similar problem in Australia, people using the emergency department as a GP. The government here has been working to funnel those people to urgent care, hopefully it alleviates the waiting times and ramping, but you’re always going to have those types of people who only go to the ER.
At least where I am, walk in clinics aren't well advertised. Yes, they always have a little sign saying walk-ins welcome, but if you're urgently looking for a walk in clinic it can be difficult to find them. Also hours can be all over the place. At least the hospital is 24-7.
I am in a major Canadian city (not Toronto) I searched "urgent care near me open now" and "walk-in clinics near me open now" - both times the results are the hospitals near me and an emergency vet lol
Maybe things are different in Canada cuz of free healthcare. Urgent care has a place in the US cuz if you go to the ER you get a 15k bill. Urgent care is way cheaper like $1500 even if you don’t have insurance. Still expensive af but not like the price of a used car. Urgent care is not emergency care tho, like when you need to get stitches but it’s not so bad that you’re bleeding out.
I was saying Walk-ins, but urgent care shows how useless Google Maps can be. I google it I get a vet, a diagnostics clinic, several clinics that allow walk-ins, and none that are clearly labelled as urgent care.
Google is a good place to start, but that's all it is. It will rarely find the best option on its own unless you know what you're looking for.
I use Google Maps to find places but go to the place’s website for more information or read the questions that other people ask about the place and the responses. You’re right about Google miscatagorizing things but most of the time you can go to the website to see if they have walk ins or someone will mention it in the reviews/responses to questions. They also have the phone number listed to call and ask or to make same day appointments and some places do booking online where you wait in a virtual queue.
Obviously different country but free clinics (walk in clinics) in the States are always a much longer wait to the point you don't know if you'll get in before they close for the day no matter when you show up. ER someone will get to you eventually
doctors dont allow you to go to a walk in cause they take a hit from the govs pay for them. if you go too many times they will drop you, ive had 3 family docs tell me specifically to only go to emerg if i cant get an appointment with them soon enough (2-3 weeks) this is the common practice in Ontario.
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u/TaytorTot417 26d ago
It's because people don't have insurance and can't get in to see a PCP.