When you live with a chronic condition, managing it is essential but is sometimes challenging. Knowing where to go for care when an urgent health issue arises can make all the difference. State Urgent Care is ready to provide convenient, exceptional care when you need it.
The Role of Urgent Care in Chronic Conditions
Urgent Care vs. Primary Care
To better understand what urgent care can do for chronic conditions, it may be helpful to explore what urgent care is and the difference between urgent care and primary care.
When you have a chronic condition—like COPD, asthma, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, or diabetes—a primary care provider or specialist plays a very important role in managing your condition. They might order lab work or diagnostic imaging to monitor your condition, adjust your medications, and discuss lifestyle changes and treatment options.
Urgent care plays a somewhat different role in chronic condition management. Many conditions, illnesses, and injuries treated at a primary care clinic can also be handled effectively in urgent care. One key distinctive of urgent care is convenience. It may be difficult to get in to see a provider right away when you’re sick, dealing with new symptoms, or have a concern. This is where urgent care comes in. Short wait times and walk-in visits enable urgent care clinics to provide convenient, effective care for episodic illness.
Treating Acute Symptoms vs. Managing Conditions
Urgent care isn’t designed to manage chronic health conditions. Where urgent care shines, however, is in treating acute—or sudden—symptoms caused by a chronic condition. An urgent care provider can order onsite diagnostic testing (including blood work, urine tests, or X-rays), perform a thorough physical exam, diagnose your health issue, and order the proper treatment.
Once your acute problem is under control, an urgent care provider will ensure aftercare is in place, including following up with a primary care provider.
Let’s explore some examples of how urgent care can help treat chronic conditions.
Asthma
Flare-ups—or exacerbations—of asthma or COPD are common reasons for urgent care visits. Maybe your inhaler isn’t relieving your symptoms as well as it used to, or you need to use it more often. Perhaps you’re short of breath after recovering from a cold.
An urgent care provider can assess your breathing, treat your asthma symptoms, and order medications to better control your breathing. An urgent care provider can help get your asthma under control and then refer you to your regular provider for ongoing asthma management.
Diabetes
If you have diabetes, you likely already see a provider or specialist who helps you manage your condition, monitors your A1C and other lab work, and adjusts your medications.
Maybe your blood sugar has been unusually high recently, and you realize you should see a provider. Urgent care would be a good choice. A provider can check your blood sugar and other important lab values, help determine what’s causing your hyperglycemia, and choose the best treatment. You would then follow up with your regular provider or endocrinologist as soon as possible to discuss your diabetes and possible changes to your treatment plan.
High Blood Pressure
Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a widespread problem and a dangerous one. Many people don’t even know they have it, since they may not have noticeable symptoms even while damage is being done to their health.
Maybe you happened to take your blood pressure at a screening machine in a pharmacy and noticed that it seems much higher than usual. Unless your level is critically high (180/120 or greater), an urgent care provider can evaluate your blood pressure, discuss your medical history, and order medication to get it under control. You would then be referred to a primary care provider to take over the ongoing management of your hypertension.
For rapid, excellent care for your chronic condition, visit us at State Urgent Care. We’re open 7 days a week, and no appointment is necessary—simply walk in!