A V Medical Center-Urgent Care

I’ve just got to balance out the other guy’s review! I don’t know what happened the night he visited; he experienced what he experienced, and I won’t argue about that even though I disagree on a couple points. But what I do know is that AVMC is top-​notch medical care for the part of town where we live. I go there for all my medical needs, unless I need to see a specialist that they don’t have on staff. Yes, you often have to wait at an urgent care. That’s the nature of urgent care and ER’s. There’s no predicting how many patients will be there at a certain time and people closer to dying are of course seen before people with paper cuts. If there’s any chance you or your child will need to be seen in an ER, then go to the ER in the first place! That’s your responsibility as the patient. A doctor doesn’t know the intricacies of your need as you’re sitting there in the waiting room. The assumption is that because you went to urgent care, the situation is urgent, not an emergency. Once when I went to AVMC urgent care, they did forward me to the ER, with instructions that if I experienced something similar in the future to just head straight to the hospital; it’s a clinic with limited diagnostics in the middle of the night, which they will readily tell you — it’s there for sore throats and little cuts. When I had appendicitis, I happened to be in urgent care in the middle of the day when Imaging was open, but still after they diagnosed me I had to go to the hospital for the surgery. Again, it’s a clinic, not a hospital, people! And with regards to the hundreds of people who write negative reviews based on wait times in a doctor’s office, I have been on the other side. I go for a routine appointment or even an urgent care visit and it turns into an emergency, which I couldn’t have planned. I’ve never had a doctor say «well, your 20 minute appointment time is up, so forget you and your emergency, I’m moving on to my next appointment.» No! Any doctor worth anything will make sure the patient in front of him/​her is taken care of before moving on, even if that means his next appointment is left sitting for an extra hour. I’m thankful that doctors at AVMC have taken this extra time with me, and I will never again complain about a long wait in a waiting room because maybe someone else needs them in that moment more than I do. If I wait an hour and I have to leave and reschedule, then that’s what I have to do, but I’m not the only person on this planet who needs medical care. Doctors can only do so much, there’s only so much time in the day, so let’s just stop holding them to a standard that we ourselves could never even live up to.
After 16 years of being a patient at AVMC, I can say that I will never leave them as long as I live in the vicinity. Yes, sometimes a receptionist or nurse or doctor is cranky. We all get cranky sometimes; you never know what’s going on in a person’s personal life that they can’t help but spill over at work. But it happens rarely at this clinic and I have it in my heart to forgive when it does because I’d want to be forgiven in the same way.
In general on Unilocal,can we all just remember that business owners and services providers and waiters and mechanics and every one else are human beings? It’s okay to offer constructive criticism to help other consumers as well as help the businesses see opportunities for growth, but seriously people, I feel like I’d like to write some pretty nasty reviews on you as customers, so take a look in the mirror!

Horrible! Steer clear of this filthy (see photos), outdated urgent care.
We ended up here while on a recent trip to Minnesota, only due to a sick boy who needed urgent care after hours.
After hours of waiting and finally getting angry enough to share what I thought of their service, my son, who was in pain, was ushered back to the «room.» I say «room,» because it’s actually one big filthy room with flimsy curtain dividers.
We sat there and listened to everybody’s interactions with the doctor, since there is no real privacy, for about another 45 minutes, and heard the same diagnosis repeatedly…
«Not really sure… you should probably go to the ER to get checked out.» So, all these people are out their urgent care copay, hours of misery, and just told to go elsewhere at midnight.
So, the 19-​year-​old-​ish doctor came in finally, as we were about to leave, and promptly, and without tests of any kind, told us that my son may have appendicitis, and we should go to the ER to see for sure.
I was equal parts furious and concerned as we sped the 30 minutes to the hospital, where we were immediately ushered in, triaged, and sent back to see the doctor (based on the AV Urgent Care doctor’s suggestion that he had appendicitis).
The doctor came in promptly, and took about 5 minutes to check thoroughly and tell us that he not only doesn’t have appendicitis, he has none of the usual signs. He just has a stomach ache, and the other doctor shouldn’t have ever forwarded him on…