5 Tips for Choosing the Best Urgent Care Finder

Time is of the essence when it comes to getting care for acute conditions, so you'll want to find the urgent care closest to you. It's a good idea to get an app with GPS location services so you can search "urgent care clinic near me" and see all of your options at a glance on a map. You may also want to be able to filter the results, for example, to see the nearest health center that takes Blue Cross, Emblem or Stillwater insurance or even the closest hospital for more serious emergency issues.

Or for even closer services, you might want to have an app that brings the urgent care into the comfort of your home. If your symptoms aren't too serious, such as a cold or mild hip pain, you can use a symptom checker to get recommendations for over the counter or other at home treatments, or you can even chat with a licensed physician over the phone to see what actions to take next.

Many illnesses strike suddenly and often at inconvenient times. If you find yourself in need of doctors services in the evening or even in the middle of the night, you'll need an urgent care finder that can help you locate offices that are open at those times, such as Walgreens or NextCare 24 hour clinics. Many of the same GPS locator apps allow you to filter search results by "open now" and have businesses hours readily available within the information section of each clinic. Or if there are no 24 hour offices near you, again, those doctor messaging apps may come in handy.

Of course when you're in pain you're looking to get out of it as soon as possible, but if you're not careful, you may find yourself in a different kind of pain when the urgent care billing comes in the mail. If you're looking to stay in budget when it comes to your health care, you'll need an urgent care finder that helps break down costs and gives you an estimate for what you will pay at your walk in visit, especially if you have an insurance copay. Detailed locators can give you information about each clinic and whether it's in your healthcare network including PPO, HMO and GHI plans. Even if you don't have insurance or have a high deductible, a good urgent care finder will help you find all the lowest nearby cash rates so you don't have to break the bank to get to feeling better.

You don't want to trust just anyone when it comes to your health. Urgent care finders can help you find the best and highest quality medical offices around with doctors that you can trust. If this is important to you, you should make sure your app also provides you with doctor and office reviews so you can hear about other patients' experiences and make the right decisions.

If you're already part of a health network, you may want to find an urgent care locator that's run through or partners with your local health group so you can book an appointment online and be sure that your current medical records are available to the urgent care physician or nursing practitioner through programs like VelociDoc. This way, you can go through a group you already know and trust. It can also to help you find emergency resources like hospitals or psychiatric homes that are in network so that you don't get the bad news of a ridiculous emergency services bill in a few months.

The good news about needing an urgent care facility in the United States is that they are located everywhere, especially with urgent care chains such as CareMore, NextCare, FastMed, Indigo and EmblemHealth clincs, and Sutter and Banner. The right urgent care finder will keep you covered on all of your U.S. road trips, whether you're in Texas, Oklahoma, or Florida. You'll be prepared if any hiking accidents happen while you're in Mountain View, Los Gatos, Tumwater or Tucson and be ready if you start feeling a flu coming on during your trip to the city of St. Paul, Hudson, Brooklyn, or Modesto. Or if you're a new student at schools like Woodbury University, Berkeley, or Ruston, you can rest assured knowing that services are available after your university health center has closed for the day. Even if you're unfamiliar with the area, you will be able to find an urgent clinic in the local neighborhood that you can recognize and trust with your health care.