When it comes to taking care of sick children, many parents find that options are limited if the children are prohibited from attending daycare or school. As such, working parents have to resort to taking time off, something that can cost the whole family in major resources.
But parents who need care for their children outside of normal working hours are in luck: an increasing number of urgent care facilities are popping up around the nation, and they can take the frustration out of waiting days or weeks for a doctor’s appointment and spending time and money in an emergency room.
And although these centers are new, one study has already concluded that they are growing in popularity as an option for parents of sick kids.
The study, published by the University of Michigan on June 23, found that more parents are choosing urgent care over emergency room visits when their children get sick and cannot attend school or daycare. Among parents who are single, divorced, African American, have job concerns, or need a doctor’s note for the child to return to school or care, emergency room and urgent care visits are significantly higher.
Children who have frequent mild illnesses are often unnecessarily excluded from child care at high rates. For parents whose children lack a readily available primary care physician, the emergency room and urgent care are more likely options.
According to the UM study, 80 percent of parents took their children to a primary care doctor when their children couldn’t attend child care or school. Twenty-six percent took their children to urgent care, beating the ER by one percent as only 25 percent of parents took their kids to an emergency room.
The UM study was based on a survey of 630 parents with children ages 0 to 5 in child care.
For many parents, availability isn’t the only issue when it comes to raising children. Out of pocket costs for healthcare are rising for everyone in the U.S. at alarming rates, and the cost of raising a child until the age of 18, for any born around 2012, is approximately $217,000 — not including college costs.