For many of us, the phrase emergency room is synonymous with immediate medical attention. If a co-worker collapses on the job or a child injures himself after school, we instinctively consider transporting them to the nearest hospital-based emergency room for treatment. However, in recent years many of the same medical services provided by an emergency room have been offered by freestanding or private facilities known as urgent care centers. An urgent care center is not precisely the same as a traditional emergency room, so it helps to understand some fundamental differences.

In the case of our two hypothetical victims, the co-worker who collapsed at work would most likely be better served in an emergency room. The injured child, on the other hand, would be an ideal candidate for an urgent care center. The co-worker may have a serious cardiac condition which would require immediate attention from a trained cardiologist. Since an emergency room is essentially one wing of a larger hospital, the equipment and trained medical personnel to handle major traumas should be readily available. The urgent care center, on the other hand, may have the means to treat broken bones or other non-life threatening conditions, but not to treat heart attacks in-house.

Another difference between an emergency room and an urgent care center is availability. An emergency room connected with a federally-funded hospital is required to provide 24-hour emergency care. An urgent care center may be privately funded, which means it has the right to assign its own hours of operation.

An urgent care center's main mission is to provide immediate medical care during times when a patient's primary physician is not available. It would not be unusual for an urgent care center to close at 11 p.m. and reopen at 7 a.m. the next morning. Anyone seeking immediate treatment between those hours would most likely be urged to visit a traditional emergency room.

One important difference between an emergency room and an urgent care center is the expense. Anyone who has visited an emergency room for a relatively minor situation may relate to the idea of sticker shock. Many emergency rooms are required by law to provide emergency treatment to anyone who requests it, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.

The hospital which sponsors the emergency room attempts to recoup some of its losses by billing insured patients at higher rates. This practice occasionally leads to the legendary 100 US dollar (USD) aspirin or the 200 USD bandage. Emergency room physicians can charge significant fees for their services as well.

An urgent care center, on the other hand, can exercise the right to refuse uninsured patients or those with a proven inability to pay. This practice keeps overhead expenses lower than those of emergency rooms, so an insured patient is not charged exorbitant fees for common medical items. Physicians who provide services at urgent care centers may agree to put a ceiling on their fees as employees of a private medical company. Patients often receive much smaller bills after visiting a local urgent care center. Because an urgent care center does not routinely handle multiple traumas, there is usually less of a wait between initial triage and examination by a physician.