We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve needed to use the ER for an non-emergency complaint. Usually, unless you’re very lucky, that means waiting for a few hours to see a doctor, reading out of date magazines and squirming uncomfortably on those hard plastic chairs.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could wait at home, on your nice comfy couch, instead? InQuickER is a service that lets you do just that. All you have to do is schedule an appointment at your local ER, pay a $25 registration fee, and show up at the appointed time. InQuickER and the hospital guarantee that you’ll be seen by a doctor within 15 minutes of your arrival, or the ER visit is free. Awesome!
The service is only available in 3 hospitals in the South right now. If you’d like it available at your hospital, you can put in a request on their website. Since the company is based about a half-hour away from me, I’m hoping they’ll expand to include a few hospitals in my area soon-it would be nice to actually get to use a cool service like this BEFORE the rest of the country, for once.
One caveat-if you have a real emergency, you need to do your waiting in the ER waiting room. If you have an urgent condition, you need to do your waiting in the waiting room. If you’re not sure if you ate a bad burrito or if you’re having a heart attack-wait in the waiting room! However, if you have a complaint that’s relatively minor but still needs to be seen by a doctor, this service will be incredibly useful for you if you have no other choice but to go to the ER.
The service is easy to use, and it’s certainly an innovative idea. I would expect it to become more useful as it expands to include more hospitals. I’d also like to see maps showing the hospitals and maybe patient reviews, like ZocDoc offers.
InQuickER is also open to criticism that it encourages overuse of emergency rooms-I’ve often waited longer than 15 minutes myself at my primary care physician’s office, even after making an appointment. Get me in to the ER in 15 minutes, and suddenly that sounds like a more attractive option. On the other hand, I’ve also had times (sick, grumpy husband, late evening on weekend) where an ER visit was the only option, and it would have been wonderful (and well worth $25) to wait at home.
What do you think? Go to their site, check it out, and let us know in the comments!
Our Rating of InQuickER
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Tool of the Day: @InQuickER – ER Visits In 15 Minutes http://ow.ly/b3EV
InQuickER on Usefultools, http://bit.ly/191JDh
RT @usefultools Tool of the Day: @InQuickER – ER Visits In 15 Minutes http://ow.ly/b3EV