Urgent Care or Emergency Room? Know When to Go

Go to an Urgent Care Center for:
- Non-life-threatening illnesses or injuries, such as— Allergies
- Animal or insect bites, including tick removal or stings from jellyfish or a stringray
- Bone fractures or simple breaks
- Bronchitis
- Congestion, nasal and chest
- Cough and cold
- Diarrhea
- Ear infection
- Fever
- Flu
- Immunizations
- Minor burns, cuts or bleeding that may require stitches
- Pink eye
- Rashes
- Sinus infection
- Sore throat
- Sprains / strains
- Strep throat
- TB Tests
- Upper respiratory infection
- Urinary tract infections
- Vomiting that isn’t constant
Go to the Emergency Room for:
- True medical emergencies and traumas, or medical conditions that require immediate treatment between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.
- Heart attack symptoms: Chest pain, any suspicion of heart ailment, heart irregularity
- Stroke symptoms: Weakness on one side, tingling, numbness, facial drooping
- Abdominal pain
- Bleeding that won’t stop
- Blood in stool
- Coughing blood or vomiting blood
- Debilitating headache
- Dehydration (weakness, no longer sweating, no urination in 12 hours, confusion, dizziness, nausea)
- Falls while pregnant
- Head injuries
- High fever
- Infant care, any symptoms if patient is younger than 3 months old
- Seizures
- Severe burns / cuts / wounds
- Severe injury / trauma
- Shortness of breath / gasping / respiratory distress
- Slurred speech
- Sudden paralysis
- Vaginal bleeding with pregnancy
- Visible fracture / broken bones / dislocation
- Vomiting that won’t stop
Urgent Care for Children
When deciding whether to take a child (older than 3 months) to urgent care or the ER, assess how responsive the child is.- If your child is still answering questions coherently and making eye contact, they generally can be seen at an urgent care.
- If a child is in respiratory distress, vomiting to point of lethargy, having seizures or suffered a head injury, call 911 and get them to the ER as soon as possible.
- If your child is not responsive or is lethargic from a fever, get them to the ER—no matter what the thermometer says. If the fever is under 101.5 and the child is acting normally, an urgent care visit likely will suffice.