Why would an urgent care facility call an ambulance for a patient?

debodun

debodun

SF VIP
Location
way upstate in New York, USA
I always hear on the scanner that an ambulance was dispatched to the local urgent care clinic. Isn't that why people go there - to be treated as an emergency? Why would they call the ambulance so much?
 

My guess would be the patient needs care which the facility cannot provide; i.e. they need to go to a hospital, to see a specialist, or even emergency surgery. An urgent care facility cannot always provide every type of service that is needed.
 

If someone comes in thinking they have a stomach virus...and it's a perforated intestine...there's not much an urgent care center can do for you. Same thing for chest pains that turn out to be a heart attack and a stitch in the side that turns out to be a ruptured appendix.

It even works that way in hospitals. When I worked at the hospital, they were required to transport patients from the same-day surgery center to the hospital by ambulance.....all 100 feet or so of the trip, even though the surgery center was connected to the hospital by an enclosed "bridge" across the driveway that separated the two. Instead of the two minutes it would take to push the gurney across the bridge, the patient had to be taken down to the ground level, loaded in an ambulance, driven 20 seconds to the emergency entrance and unloaded from the ambulance. Didn't make any sense to me... Few things do anymore. I can tell you, when I'm elected God, there are going to be some changes made around here!
 
jujube said:
If someone comes in thinking they have a stomach virus...and it's a perforated intestine...there's not much an urgent care center can do for you. Same thing for chest pains that turn out to be a heart attack and a stitch in the side that turns out to be a ruptured appendix.

It even works that way in hospitals. When I worked at the hospital, they were required to transport patients from the same-day surgery center to the hospital by ambulance.....all 100 feet or so of the trip, even though the surgery center was connected to the hospital by an enclosed "bridge" across the driveway that separated the two. Instead of the two minutes it would take to push the gurney across the bridge, the patient had to be taken down to the ground level, loaded in an ambulance, driven 20 seconds to the emergency entrance and unloaded from the ambulance. Didn't make any sense to me... Few things do anymore. I can tell you, when I'm elected God, there are going to be some changes made around here!
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It's all about their professional liability insurance, I'm sure.
 
I was going to say liability first off. Better to farm the patient elsewhere so someone else gets sued. You've made an assessment and covered your butt...NEXT.
 
fureverywhere said:
I was going to say liability first off. Better to farm the patient elsewhere so someone else gets sued. You've made an assessment and covered your butt...NEXT.
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That would be my guess too.

The urgent care where I live is located within the hospital. Convenient. I've seen them admit people immediately when necessary.
 
When my niece was so ill, a couple of times they sent her in an ambulance from the office to the hospital. We asked if we could take her, but they said no, she was too fragile and they didn't want to risk her going south on the way without professionals to help her.
 

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