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What is Urgent Care?
When a person is sick, we have several treatment options for medical care. We know when to go to an emergency hospital when we need to get same-day urgent care, and when it’s ok to wait and see our PCP. This wasn’t the case in veterinary medicine until recently. Happily, animal urgent care clinics have started to become more common, giving us more options for same-day treatment of stable, but painful conditions. As a pet owner, it’s important to understand what options are available near you so you can be prepared in the event your dog or cat needs you to spring into action.
Depending upon the severity of your dog or cat’s medical condition, you might choose to go to an ER, an animal urgent care clinic, or your GP. The list below is incomplete, but it covers some of the more common emergencies and conditions that should be seen by each of these different types of veterinary medical care facilities.
What Should I Know About Veterinary Urgent Care?
Veterinary Urgent Care clinics are open later in the day and into the evening, 7 days per week. In this way we can extend the number of hours where urgent pet care is available after your family vet has closed for the day. Pets in stable condition who can’t wait to get an appointment with their regular veterinarian should be seen at an animal urgent care clinic. Having an appointment eliminates the need to wait at a busy emergency room when your pet is uncomfortable, but stable.
Same-Day Appointments
A human can tell you what is hurting and provide some possible scenarios for why it might be hurting, a pet doesn’t have that luxury. Our appointments are intentionally only available for the same day because some conditions really can’t wait, if you can’t get an appointment with one of our clinics, please continue to seek care for your pet elsewhere as soon as possible.
Veterinary Urgent Care is part of Ethos Veterinary Health. We have 24-hour emergency/critical care and specialty referral hospitals nationwide.
Emergency and Triage
Patient Severity Index
Emergency veterinary hospitals are geared to provide life-saving care. Patients are triaged and treated based on the severity of their condition. A patient who needs medical care, but who is more stable than a pet in a life-threatening condition, will be asked to wait.
At Veterinary Urgent Care, all our patients are stable, so your pet will be seen at his or her scheduled appointment. We treat patients who are at levels 4 and 5 on the patient severity triage index graphic below. This allows you to wait more comfortably at home, knowing your pet will get the care he or she needs and can reduce stress and anxiety for everyone involved, including your pet.
