How Freestanding Emergency Rooms Help Patients
Freestanding emergency rooms, especially in Texas, have sprouted quickly even in just a short span of time. Rightly so, they are now being branded as the “Starbucks of health care”, practically because they are starting to be seen ubiquitously.
The freestanding emergency rooms that we see today started in the ‘ 70s. Back then, these freestanding emergency rooms provided emergency services to rural areas that could not afford the expenses of a regular hospital.
Today, freestanding emergency rooms are not situated in rural areas, but instead, in convenient, strategic points in the urban and suburban areas –which includes your neighborhood shopping center.
As cited in Reuters, according to Dr. Jeremiah Schuur, a lead researcher in the study of freestanding emergency departments, “Freestanding EDs have the potential to increase access in several ways: they can be located in areas without emergency care, like a rural area, or they can open in an area without adequate emergency care, for example, where hospital EDs have chronic long waiting times.”
And this is exactly what freestanding emergency rooms have done.
Number one, because they are not physically attached to a hospital, they have done away with the congestion that hospital-based emergency rooms bring about; and two, they have strategically situated themselves in places that are convenient and highly accessible, such as shopping centers.
So what exactly does freestanding emergency rooms bring to patients? Freestanding emergency rooms are very much like hospital-based emergency rooms, as they provide access to laboratory tests, diagnostic procedures, as well emergency care by emergency physicians, all 24/7. This means that freestanding emergency rooms are well equipped by the state-of-the-art technology, and staffed with health professionals like nurses, doctors, and laboratory technicians. This also means that freestanding emergency rooms have what it takes to provide care for a variety of emergency conditions such as a heart attack, stroke, and minor traumas.
The biggest difference of freestanding emergency rooms is that they have fewer admissions compared to hospitals, which means that they can provide immediate services to patients, without having to usher them through long lines. This means that compared to hospital-based emergency rooms, the waiting time in freestanding emergency rooms is very, very minimal, if none at all.
Furthermore, being physically detached to a hospital facility, freestanding emergency rooms are considered to have lower overhead costs, which enable them to charge at lower prices, and provide reasonable payment models while providing high-quality care. Contrary to popular belief, freestanding emergency rooms actually charge at a rate that is comparable, or even lower than hospital-based emergency rooms.
More and more patients are sharing their stories and testimonies of how freestanding emergency rooms have been able to provide them with convenient, speedier care.
Many freestanding emergency rooms are located in Texas. In fact, there are sources that claim that 90% of freestanding emergency rooms are actually in Texas; and the number of these freestanding emergency rooms has gone up from 0 to 156 in the span of five years.
If you are looking for a freestanding emergency room in Corpus Christi, Texas, you can check out Physicians Premier ER, your Corpus Christi ER, is a freestanding emergency room able to provide you with high-quality emergency care, minus the time and cost-related hassles a hospital-based ER.
To learn more about Physicians Premier ER, at Corpus Christi, visit their website today at https://mdpremier.com/.
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