Hi, I’m Dr. David Lemak, Tahoe Forest Urgent Care Medical Director. I was asked to talk to you today about how to decide when it’s appropriate for you to go to a primary care provider versus going to urgent care.
That’s a pretty straightforward question if you have an acute health care need and you don’t have a primary care provider. If you’re new to the area, or in between doctors, or you’re in a different city than you normally live, if you have an acute health care need, urgent care is the right location for you.
Now, that said, primary care does many things exceptionally well. They do the comprehensive health care. They get to know you as a person, your family. They know all the complexities of your health and you. So, for comprehensive preventive care, can’t beat primary care. They’re also the right location to go to for keeping up to date with your vaccines, making sure you have your medications adjusted correctly, etc.
But what if you can’t get in to see them in a timely fashion, and you have something a bit more pressing, like you have maybe a broken ankle, or you’ve got a pretty bad sore throat, or your child has an earache? Well, all of those things could potentially be managed in primary care, but they’re really not capable of doing it as efficiently as urgent care can do this. Why? Because we have X-ray on site, we have point-of-care lab testing on site. So, we’re able to manage your acute health care need in a much more timely fashion.
Wherever you end up at Tahoe Forest, we’re going to take really good care of you. And if you end up going to urgent care, we’re never going to say, “Oh, you should have gone to your primary care provider.” And the primary care provider, if they need for you to go to urgent care, will tell you to do so.
So, thanks again for listening.
