How are you supposed to decide where to get care for emergent conditions? Where is the dividing line between “just book a clinic visit”, “head into urgent care when you get a chance”, and “go inmediately to the ER”?

So this is a question I’ve always struggled with and it makes me feel very dumb especially because I literally am a EMR. This feels like something I should know. But at the same time I have also called to book a clinic visit before and had the scheduler tell me to go to the ER immediately only for it to wind up being nothing.

Certain things are obvious of course. Like if I need stitches or there is other major trauma then I know to go to the ER. If it is something like a concerning infection then I know urgent care can sort me out. For a skin rash that’s probably a clinic visit. If urgent care is closed and it can’t wait then default to the ER. But there are also the issues where I genuinely don’t know on what side of the line they should fall. This is especially an issue for things that have been going on for a while which I know could be severe but almost certainly aren’t.

For example (not asking for medical advice) I’ve been having repeated extended periods of heart palpitations for the past 2 weeks. At first I just chalked it up to screwing up my anxiety med schedule while I was on vacation because my med situation does cause heart palpitations if I screw it up. So I didn’t think much of it at first but now I’ve been back on my meds properly for 2 weeks with no change. So, that’s cardiac symptoms which in a patient would make me tell them to immediately go to the ER just to be safe. But at the same time it’s been going on for 2 weeks and it’s probably just some vitamin deficiency or something so it probably wouldn’t kill me to wait a week for a clinic appointment (no walk in clinic here). Do I split the difference and go to urgent care? It’s like schrodingers medical issue, it’s both the worlds most benign thing and a symptom of immediate death until someone looks into it, so how do I know who should open that schrodingers box?

It seems like there has to be some easy dividing line on how to know which one to go to that I just don’t know.

Edit: In USA, because that probably matters here.

  • @Kaiyoto
    2•3 months ago

    I’ve kinda learned over time what is appropriate for what through personal experience or by listening to others. I also ask myself questions like can it wait a couple of days? Being in America I also ask myself is it worth going to the ER for this? Someone mentioned too that a lot of insurance companies now have nurses you can call for this sort of help.

    If you genuinely think it’s life threatening, go to the ER. If it’s something that isn’t life threatening but should be taken care of ASAP, then Urgent care is a good choice. Something like a broken bone, stitches. They have a lot of equipment. If they can’t treat you or discover it’s something worse they will send you to the ER.

    I had an issue with heart palpitations a few year ago. I went to my primary care doctor and then went to a specialist. I think total it cost like 300$ or something. I was worried it was something worse yeah it turned out to be stress and anxiety. But the specialist did rule out any heart problems which included those scary ones where healthy people drop dead. That was worth the peace of mind. If I had gone to the urgent care they would have ruled out any immediate life threatening conditions and then have you follow up with your pcp or maybe get you to the specialist.