Surgery Centers and Urgent Care

Ambulatory Surgery Centers are medical facilities that specialize in elective same-day or outpatient surgical procedures. They do not offer emergency care. Patients treated in these surgical centers do not require admission to a hospital and are well enough to go home after the procedure. If the patient needs overnight care or has a serious complication, he or she is transferred to an acute care hospital.

Why Are Ambulatory Surgery Centers Important?

An outpatient procedure that is done in an ASC costs between one-half and one-third as much as the same procedure done in a hospital. There is also significantly less administrative paperwork at an ambulatory surgical center compared to the admissions process at most hospitals.

Urgent Care

Urgent Care delivers prompt medical care at a substantially lower cost by only offering patients the care that they need. Emergency rooms are equipped to treat life-threatening circumstances, but the high cost of using a facility designed for that level of medical care is reflected in their bill. As a result, the treatment costs at urgent care centers are almost always significantly lower.