You should call 911 or come right to the emergency room if you’re systemically sick. That’s when an illness affects your entire body, and you have severe pain or sudden onset of severe symptoms, a fever that won’t break, or “something doesn’t work,” like you’re unable to move an arm or leg or breathe normally.

Hospital emergency rooms are equipped to care for life-threatening emergencies like heart attack, stroke, seizures, and traumatic injuries caused by car or motorcycle accidents, severe falls or drownings.

Freestanding emergency rooms have popped up in neighborhoods across South Central Texas. These types of facilities are not connected to or located within a full-service hospital. While their fees are just as high as those found in a hospital emergency room, they suffer from a lack of proximity to state-of-the-art definitive care services for problems like stroke, heart attack, or trauma requiring immediate surgery. Very serious patients must be transported to a hospital where the patient thereby generates additional costs and higher medical risk.

The presumption that care is the same at a freestanding emergency room and a hospital emergency room is false and, at the very least, misleading. Freestanding emergency rooms are more like urgent care centers, but their cost is 10-15 times greater.

Today, patients choose to visit urgent care facilities for a variety of reasons:

• When a primary care physician is not available for immediate treatment of common illnesses such as colds, sore throats, flu, fever and allergies
• When treatment is required for minor emergencies such as sprains, strains, cuts requiring stitches, burns, contusions and minor fractures
• When an illness arises while a patient is traveling or out of town and prolonged symptoms have made returning home an unviable option
• Shorter wait times than a freestanding or hospital emergency room
• Insurance co-pays and service costs often lower at urgent care centers