Why Have Laboratory Testing Done at Urgent Care?
More and more, people are choosing to have blood work and laboratory testing done at urgent care centers. Probably for the same reasons they choose urgent care for anything else:
- Urgent care is more convenient; usually in your neighborhood and open after normal business hours.
- Efficiency is higher at an urgent care, due to the handling of only a shortlist of urgent health situations.
- It is more affordable due, again, to the shortlist of emergency situations an urgent care is designed to handle.
With triage, or the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses in a medical setting, comes the long waits when a more emergent situation hits the hospital and pushes your routine blood work back a few minutes... or even hours. At GoHealth Urgent Care, we are working on only what we handle best, and we get you in and out, fast!
Convenience
Who wants to schedule a test two weeks out with their doctor?
No one, that's who.
With urgent care, you can get the lab test you need, today. At GoHealth Urgent Care center, you can check-in online or just show up for a walk-in blood test.
: the majority of common tests run by your doctor can be done at urgent care. A quality urgent care center can do everything from blood tests to EKG diagnostics, minus the hassle.
Efficiency
Nobody likes waiting in a waiting room – no matter how many magazines might be laying around. At an urgent care center, the time spent waiting for a provider is minimal, with online check-in! Less time spent waiting is one of the greatest perks to the rise of urgent care as a viable healthcare option, and going in for lab services and prompt blood test results is no different.
Affordability
Part of what makes urgent care great is the price. Usually, urgent care centers will be significantly less expensive than the ER. There’s a very high chance your insurance will be accepted – of course, this isn’t 100%. But even without insurance, you’re much better off paying out-of-pocket at an urgent care than at a hospital.
List of Urgent Care Lab Services
See below for a list of common lab tests and services offered by urgent care centers. Note: this is just an example of lab services – some urgent care centers do not offer every service below.
- Any number of tests to determine the health of organs and identify potential diseases. Blood tests are sometimes processed in a separate laboratory and may take a few hours, or even days, to process. Oh, and they will sometimes bill separately, so prepare yourself for unexpected costs to come days after your tests elsewhere.
- Medical testing outside the clinical laboratory for things like rapid flu, rapid mono, blood sugar, urinalysis, and a urine pregnancy test. These tests are performed in the clinic and results are immediately available.
- Chest X-rays, extremity x-rays, and EKG testing allow us to see a visual representation of the body for analysis.
- Commercial driver’s license exams, pre-participation exams for youth sports, worker’s compensation injury evaluation, urgent women's health exams, and physical therapy
No Waiting for Blood Tests
Blood tests allow providers to evaluate how well major organs are working, diagnose diseases, and determine whether or not medications are having the intended effect.
How much does an urgent care blood test cost? According to Walk-In Lab, when the patient is uninsured, blood tests will cost around $1,500, just maybe a few hundred for some routine, non-panel tests.
With insurance, however, it completely depends on your insurance plan and provider. The main takeaway here is no appointment is necessary, at least at GoHealth Urgent Care centers.