Top Rated Urgent Care Clinic in Fairfax, VA

Urgent care clinics are able to diagnose and treat a wide assortment of illnesses and injuries that are not classified as life-threatening. They employ highly trained and qualified general practice doctors who have experience with all types of medical conditions that urgent care would see. You can go to an urgent care clinic with any medical ailment that requires urgent medical attention with the convenience of not having to book an appointment, which can take several days with your family doctor. Urgent care clinics also typically have evening and weekend hours, so they are a good option for treatment outside of your primary doctor’s office hours. Many urgent care centers have on-site laboratory services or X-ray labs so diagnostic tests are required to help the doctor determine the extent, or root cause, of your illness or injury. Being able to have bloodwork, urine samples and other laboratory tests done at the time of your visit often eliminates the need for follow-up appointments. Having an X-ray lab on-site will allow the doctor to quickly and easily diagnose sprains, strains, and fractures to ensure the proper treatment is applied. Urgent care is a convenient, cost-effective alternative to an emergency room visit to treat most mild to moderately severe illnesses and injuries. Patients are seen on a first-come first-served basis without the long waits that patients can endure in a busy emergency room waiting room. In an emergency room, patients are seen in order of severity of their illness or injury, so mild to moderate cases can end up waiting for several hours to be seen. If you are unsure of the services an urgent care center can provide, you can check their list of services on their website or call them directly to ask if they are able to see you based on your symptoms.

Walk-in clinics and urgent care clinics both operate on a first-come-first-served basis with no appointment bookings available. They are both able to diagnose and treat a wide assortment of injuries and illnesses and in most cases are open longer hours than a typical doctor’s office. However, urgent care clinics typically have longer hours than a walk-in clinic and are able to treat more urgent medical cases due to the training and experience of the doctors on hand, as well as the testing services and equipment they have on hand. Walk-in clinics can treat most illnesses and mild injuries such as sprains and strains. Cuts or lacerations requiring stitches and fractured bones will need to go to urgent care for proper treatment of the injuries. In the cases of illnesses, urgent care can also help more severe cases with the ability to do on-site laboratory tests and perform X-rays, both services that a walk-in clinic does not offer.

The decision to go to urgent care or the emergency room, and which one is better, is dependent on your symptoms and the severity of your injury or illness. If you have a life-threatening illness or injury, you need to call 911 urgently or get yourself to the nearest emergency room. For all other illnesses and injuries that are mild to moderate, urgent care is a convenient and cost-effective alternative for receiving medical attention. A visit to the emergency room can be quite expensive, along with time-consuming as wait times for non-life-threatening conditions can be several hours. Emergency rooms see patients on a first-come-first-served basis but also based on the severity of their patient’s symptoms. Urgent care clinics also see patients on a first-come first-served basis with less chance of getting bumped for more dire cases. Urgent care has the staff and facilities to handle most injuries and illnesses that are not life-threatening with doctors trained and experienced in diagnosing and treating a wide assortment of conditions, as well as additional services in some centers such as X-rays and laboratories for more complete medical care.

We look forward to your visit here at Prima Urgent Care! We serve patients from Fairfax VA, South Riding VA, Dulles VA, Chantilly VA, Stone Ridge VA, Oakton VA, Legato VA, Burke VA, Oak Hill, Lees Corner VA & BEYOND! Our Fairfax location is close to Fair Oaks Hospital, Fair Oaks Mall, and Greenbriar Shopping Center.