urgent care

noun

Definition of urgent care

1 : medical care provided for illnesses or injuries which require prompt attention but are typically not of such seriousness as to require the services of an emergency room … they have turned to one of the fastest-growing segments of American health care: urgent care, a common category of walk-in clinics with uncommon interest from Wall Street.— Julie Creswell —often used before another noun If your leg or arm is sore and swollen, go to an urgent care center; if you have chest pain, shortness of breath or you're coughing up blood, get to an emergency room.— Rick NathansonThe athlete sustains an inversion or eversion ankle injury and is evaluated at a local emergency room or urgent care facility.— James S. Keene

2 : medical care of an urgent nature Strokes now are the focus of a broad new public-awareness campaign labeling them as "brain attacks," needing the same urgent care as heart attacks.— Marilyn Chase

Examples of urgent care in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The secret wish many people have to speak up about sick colleagues is reflected in an ad campaign on the New York City subway and elsewhere this season by CityMD, an operator of urgent care clinics. — Chip Cutter, WSJ, "You Sneezed. Go Home.," 24 Jan. 2019 Try this: Consider getting your levels checked with a simple blood test at your doctor's office or an urgent care clinic. — Karen Asp, Woman's Day, "3 Ways to Lower Your Odds of Diabetes, According to Experts," 15 Nov. 2018 Its services range from digital urgent care to virtual visits for follow-up appointments to peer-to-peer consults between physicians. — Steven J. Corwin, Recode, "Let’s make telemedicine available to all," 25 June 2018 Overall, 39 percent of visits to urgent care centers resulted in antibiotic prescriptions, the study found. — Fox News, "Urgent care centers often prescribe unnecessary antibiotics," 19 July 2018 Hurricane traffic and a visit to urgent care were the culprits. — Taysha Murtaugh, Country Living, "Christina El Moussa Gets Criticized on Instagram Following Her Family Trip to Hawaii," 25 Aug. 2018 Follow-up visits to urgent care within those first two weeks were a little higher in the former group (0.9% versus 0.1%), but follow-ups overall during the first two months were actually lower in the telemed cohort. — Clifton Leaf, Fortune, "Why Hasn’t Telemedicine Taken Off? Hey, Blame This Guy.," 3 July 2018 Death rates from heart attacks, strokes, childbirth, and other urgent care situations would spike. — Ron Klain, Vox, "A pandemic killing tens of millions of people is a real possibility — and we are not prepared for it," 15 Oct. 2018 Last year, UnitedHealth Group, yet another leading insurance provider, announced plans to buy a large physician group, DaVita’s primary and urgent care services, for $4.9 billion. — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, "DOJ approves $69B CVS-Aetna merger as healthcare industry restructures," 11 Oct. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'urgent care.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.