How to choose the best urgent care clinic for a child

As any parent knows, illnesses and accidents don’t always occur during your doctor’s regular office hours. Thankfully, Children’s Wisconsin has five conveniently located urgent care clinics available whenever sickness strikes.

With so many options available, it can be a bit overwhelming and, as with anything, you want to feel confident you’re making the right choice. Below are some important things to keep in mind when choosing an urgent care clinic for your child.

Quality

Just like our hospitals and primary care offices, Children’s Wisconsin’s urgent care clinics are staffed by board-certified pediatricians and specially trained advanced practice nurse practitioners. As pediatricians, we are well-equipped to treat the more complex problems that children often experience, such as cuts, sprains or fractures, infections, concussions, or trouble breathing. Our team is dedicated to quality improvement and evidence-based medicine to treat your child with the best pediatric care in the area.

Convenience

Children’s Wisconsin has urgent care clinic located in Milwaukee, Delafield, Mequon, Wauwatosa and New Berlin. All are open evenings and weekends — no appointments necessary — and our New Berlin clinic is even open on holidays.

Walk-ins are always welcome, but we know it can be difficult for a child to sit and wait when they aren’t sick, much less when they need to be seen by a doctor. You can now see the wait time at all of our urgent care clinics and even schedule an appointment using your computer or mobile device by going to childrenswi.org/urgentcare. Then you are free to wait in the comfort of your home until it’s time to come in.

Kid-friendly staff

Our staff is specially trained to work with children of any age. As we like to say at Children’s Wisconsin, kids are not just small adults. Due to their developing bodies, kids have unique needs and require specialized treatments. But we love working with kids. It’s all we do! We have the only urgent care clinics in the Milwaukee area dedicated solely to children.

Connected care

Our clinics use the same state-of-the-art electronic health record (EHR) system as the rest of Children’s Wisconsin. This inter-connectivity allows us to easily access your child’s medical history and work with his or her health care team — including their primary care doctor, the emergency department and specialists — to coordinate treatment and follow-up care, if needed. In fact, Children’s Wisconsin is the first pediatric urgent care practice in the United States to receive the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Patient-Centered Connected Care Recognition.

Cost savings

When it comes to charges and co-pays, urgent care visits are almost always less expensive than a trip the emergency room. Now, if your child has a serious or life-threatening injury, don’t hesitate to take him or her straight to the nearest emergency department or call 911. But for less critical issues — such as a sprained ankle, slight fever or minor cut — urgent care is the cheaper, and more appropriate, choice.

Children’s Wisconsin’s urgent care clinics have been caring for children in the Milwaukee area for more than 20 years. While many things change over two decades, one thing remains constant: We continue to offer high-quality, child-centered, connected care for your family when you need us.

Amy Romashko, MD Medical Director Children’s Wisconsin Urgent Care

Children’s Wisconsin has more than 20 primary care offices conveniently located throughout the Milwaukee area and southeast Wisconsin. Find a pediatrician near you.