Urgent Care Near Me offers cost-effective, convenient health care ... - Community Impact Newspaper

Many Houstonians view Urgent Care Near Me as the place to go when medical needs arise. Its nonexistent wait times, high-quality physicians and quick access to advanced technology certainly beat the unavoidable frustrations of typical hospital emergency rooms.

Lesser known but equally important is Urgent Care Near Me's telemedicine service, which provides the same exceptional health care at even more convenience to patients. Darrell Clark, Chief Operating Officer, said the operations' success is due to the staff's dedication to premium care.

"Our goal is to offer a higher quality than just your standard telemedicine service and also a higher quality of care in our urgent care versus your typical urgent care—especially with RSV, flu and COVID-19 numbers creeping up. It's a real battle right now," Clark said.

Urgent Care Near Me opened on Richmond Avenue in January, providing a full gamut of services to residents who reside near The Galleria—which Clark said was previously considered a health care desert.

"What makes us stand out is our customer service, our availability and our location near The Galleria. There's not a lot of urgent cares around there," Clark said.

Today, many health care providers are short-staffed and struggling to perform—but Urgent Care Near Me is consistently staffed, allowing them to keep wait times under five minutes while also spending ample time with each patient.

"We have more than enough staff to handle patients so that when they come in, they're not waiting. You have a nurse practitioner and there's also a physician that's always able to come in and help out in case there's any backlog," Clark said. "What we pride ourselves on is our wait time, and there's no wait."

While many urgent care facilities only have nurse practitioners on staff, Urgent Care Near Me has emergency room physicians available at all times to answer questions and step in when necessary. Additionally, if a patient comes to Urgent Care Near Me Richmond who needs to go to the emergency room, Bellaire ER is just a 10-minute drive away.

"Our clinicians are able to spend more time with the patient answering questions. There's not a rushed feeling. Our focus is on quality and not quantity," Clark said. "We try to provide a high level of care there and of course, our care is always backed up by an emergency room physician."

More perks for Urgent Care Near Me patients include budget-friendly prices through its accommodating insurance policy, on-site concierge medicine, immune boosting IV infusions and speedy turnaround testing.

"Any testing that's needed, whether it's an X-ray or COVID test or flu, results are given right away within an hour of that visit," Clark said. " We also offer a full gamut of products, so we offer immune boosting IV infusions. We're a COVID-19 treatment center, so when patients come in to be seen for COVID, we provide treatment right away ... We are able to prescribe [medicine] right away."

For those who would prefer to visit the doctor from the comfort of their own home, workspace or school, Urgent Care Near Me offers a cutting-edge telemedicine program at VirtualERs.com. Composed of U.S. Emergency Room board-certified physicians, the telemedicine unit is available to assist patients with almost any ailment at any time of day.

"With telemedicine, we're also available 24/7. We can see and prescribe anything that's needed for a patient. If they're on a lunch break or at work and they can't get seen, then we're able to see them right away," Clark said.

Whether on vacation or too sick to get out of bed, patients simply create an account and are scheduled for a call back no later than 30 minutes after initially requested. Using the online portal, VirtualERs.com's experts can discuss anything from pregnancy to respiratory, psychiatric problems and even men's health.

"Our vision for telemedicine is to be able to offer an alternative to doctors' office waits and emergency room waits," Clark said. "It's more convenient. We can see the patients 24/7."

Once the doctor determines a virtual patients' treatment plan, they can pick up their prescription at a pharmacy or receive it via email or fax. Self-pay patients are charged a discounted rate, and insured patients will pay their Telemedicine copay which is typically $0 depending on the insurance.

"Patients do not have to worry about these large surprise bills or ... the exorbitant bills that they would get from going to an emergency room. It's much more cost efficient, but at the same time, we pride ourselves on providing that high-quality health care experience," Clark said.

Whether visiting Virtual ERs or Urgent Care Near Me, each and every patient who walks through the doors or calls in will be provided with top-notch care at a budget-friendly price. Head to www.urgentcarenearmetx.com to find out more about Urgent Care Near Me—and get started with Virtual ERs' telemedicine program by calling 713-660-0001 or visiting www.virtualers.com.

The above story was produced by Community Impact's Storytelling team with information solely provided by the local business as part of their "sponsored content" purchase through our advertising team. Our integrity promise to our readers is to clearly identify all CI Storytelling posts so they are separate from the content decided upon, researched and written by our journalism department.