When choosing the best urgent care in Fresno, you have several options. In fact, Google has approximately 20 locations around the city. What makes one better than another? There are several factors you should consider and questions you should ask.
Start by asking your primary care doctor, if you have one. Your doctor is a great resource for knowing when to go see him or her, when to go to urgent care, and when to go to the ER. If you don’t currently have a doctor, these questions can help you narrow your choice and select the best urgent care doctors and nurses.
Ask These Questions Before You Make Your Choice
How do you cut a list of several urgent care practices down to one? Look at each one and research the answers to these questions.
Where Is the Urgent Care Located?
Location is going to make a big difference. If you need care and don’t have a car, you need to make sure you can get to that location using a bus or a service like Uber. If the ride will cost too much, you need a closer location. However, location isn’t the only thing to consider.
Ideally, you want an urgent care practice that has multiple locations. If you’re at work, you want to be able to reach a location near your work. But, if you aren’t feeling better a few days later and need to return to urgent care, a location near your home may be more practical. If you stick to the same urgent care practice, each office can access the doctor’s notes and your medical file.
Another consideration is how close the urgent care is to a pharmacy. If you are going to need to have a prescription filled, it’s handy to have a pharmacy next door or within walking distance.
Is Your Insurance Accepted?
Make sure the urgent care you’ve chosen takes your insurance. Do this before you leave. You don’t want to arrive and learn that your insurance isn’t accepted so you’ll need to pay out of pocket or go somewhere else. When you’re sick or injured, the last thing you want to do is have to waste time going from one address to another.
Premium Urgent Care in Fresno accepts all of these insurances:
- Aetna
- Anthem Blue Cross PPO
- Blue Shield
- Cigna PPO
- Covered California
- Delta Health PPO
- HealthNet Calviva
- HealthNet CalViva Direct
- HealthNet PPO
- LaSalle
- Medi-Cal
- Medicare
- Sante HMO
- St. Agnes HMO
- TriCare
- United Health Care PPO
Do the Doctors Have the Credentials and Qualifications You Require?
Can you tell what the doctors can help with after viewing a website? Urgent care is for urgent health issues, but it’s not meant for life-and-death situations like a possible heart attack. Go to the ER for that or call 911 and have paramedics help you until you get to the hospital.
What Services Are Available?
Find out what services are available. While urgent care doctors might be able to diagnose and treat a sprained ankle, they will send you to the ER if you have a fracture that requires surgery. Urgent care facilities have licensed doctors, but they may not have specialists like an orthopedic surgeon on-site.
While the pandemic has wound down, it’s not over. Sometimes, you still need a COVID test for your own peace of mind or your employer requires one if you request extended leave while you recover. Many urgent care practices have COVID tests available.
According to the CDC, obesity reached 41.9% in 2020. Severe obesity increased to 9.2%. Losing weight for some is a challenging situation to overcome, and despite what some people say, cutting calories and working out more isn’t always effective or even safe. For this reason, some urgent care practices like Fresco Premium Urgent Care offer weight loss services that help you get into a doctor-supervised weight loss program. It’s a supportive, effective way to lose weight and keep that weight off.
Premium Urgent Care in Fresno has doctors who can help with minor illnesses like the flu, injuries like a sprain or cut that needs stitching, and wellness exams or vaccinations. Doctors and registered nurses are there and ready to help, but you also need to make sure you’re honest with them. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, make sure you tell them that when you see the nurse or doctor. If you have a penicillin allergy, ensure they know that.
What Are the Busiest Times? Is Online Check-In Available?
One of the neat features of Google is that you can view the “Popular Times.” This tells you when you’re most likely to wait longer than normal. Pick a slower time and you’ll likely spend less time in the waiting room.
Look for other features that help make the process faster. Telemedicine visits are helpful if your health issue is related to a cough, sore throat, vomiting, rash, anxiety, etc. Telemedicine obviously won’t help if you’ve cut yourself while cooking dinner and suspect you need stitches.
If you do need to go to Fresno urgent care, look for practices that offer online check-in. It saves a lot of time as you can get paperwork out of the way before your appointment and already be on the list to see the doctor.
While you’re looking at locations, pay attention to the hours and when the last walk-in appointment is accepted. Fresno Premium Urgent Care takes walk-in patients until 6:30 p.m. and is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, including weekends.
What Do Other Patients Say? Do You Have Friends or Family Who Have Used That Location?
It never hurts to read reviews and ask friends and families if they can recommend an urgent care practice. When you’re looking for reviews, you want to find a practice that puts the patient first. You want warm, caring, understanding staff and physicians, reasonable wait times, and clean waiting rooms and patient rooms. You also want to see reviews where the patient felt heard and didn’t feel that the time with the doctor was unnecessarily rushed.
Premium Urgent Care is a highly rated Fresno urgent care location. Complete forms at home and check-in online and save time. We do everything we can to keep waits to a minimum and provide exceptional care.
If you have questions and aren’t certain you should see your doctor, go to the hospital, or go to urgent care, Premium Urgent Care in Fresno has a quick guide to determining when to go to the ER. If urgent care is the best choice, our doctors and nurses want to get you feeling better as quickly as possible, so arrange a telemedicine or in-person visit for your urgent care needs.