While providing decent service, emergency rooms aren’t meeting the expectations of people: ER wait times in the U.S. increased from 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes from 2003 to 2009; the average ER visit can cost a patient over $1,300. This is both time and money that people just don’t happen to have nowadays. And with an ever-growing population, of which is estimated to need nearly 52,000 physicians to meet expected health needs in 2025, it means that things are going to get worse — hospitals that are under-staffed and overly expensive.

However, while this option is one that people would rather not settle for, they should know that they don’t have to. Local family care providers, sometimes referred to as emergency walk in clinics, and urgent care clinics, offer people low cost health clinics within their community that provide the same, if not better, quality of medical service. With physicians staffed around the clock, these locations provide community members with family quick care, offering low wait times (of which are less than 15 minutes, on average) and the ability to receive great medical care.

These local family care providers can work with local families, especially those of the low-income bracket, providing healthcare where needed. These locations double as a health clinic for children offering basic vaccinations, cold/flu prevention, and more. Similarly, they equally work as a health clinic for women, providing women with pregnancy consultation, basic feminine checkups, and fast std testing.

The primary benefit of these family care providers is that they offer low cost medical care from physicians that can get to know the entire family. As a decent amount of medicine and physical traits come down to genetics, allowing a physician to better understand the entire family’s medical history can make for better, conscious medical care. This can come down to a physician knowing whether or not heart disease is recurrent in the family, whether cancer is common among family members, and if diabetes has been a past issue for other family members.

Furthermore, these family care providers and their locations can offer most all of the same services that one can get when visiting an emergency room. Family care providers can usually always offer treatment or abrasions, cuts, flu, fractures, sprains, and more. This makes healthcare a little easier on the body and mind, as you won’t have to worry about long waits or high costs when needing immediate medical care. Rather, they’ll take care of you without any worry besides bettering your health.