ZoomCare: A New Reasonably Priced Alternative To Urgent Care

This past week when I turned seriously ill with pneumonia, I was looking for some alternative to high priced urgent care and a quick appointment. I found out a new form of affordable urgent care service with same day appointments and appointments for just $99(for those without health insurance, and $129 for those with health insurance) and lab tests as low as $20. Compared to up to $1000 or more for some emergency room or $300+ urgent care services.

ZoomCare operates 7(clinic #8 will open very soon) neighborhood clinics in the Portland, Oregon area and is a revolutionary approach to more affordable on-demand medical care for a wide range of illnesses, falls, injuries, etc. In cases where tests exceed what ZoomCare can offer on-site, it partners with Providence hospital or other health providers to provide that service.

Utilizing a very talented team of Doctors, Physician's Assistants and other professionals, ZoomCare seems very good at being accurate in diagnosis for a decent range of more common health problems or injury relief. The professional I saw, Stephanie Benjamin, MPAS,PA-C was able to quickly diagnose and offer treatment for my pneumonia as well as my painful ear infection with antibiotics and other medication. ZoomCare also offers some videos about conditions such as pneumonia on-line that you can access with a key code they offer during your office visit. And any lab test results are emailed to your selected address, so you can review the results and any required treatment. This is a really fresh and modern approach to medical treatment.

The ZoomCare model should help to influence more health care providers to offer a similar streamlined service able to offer affordable community based health care. It might be something of a fast food approach to medicine, but it saves lots of money compared to other urgent care or emergency services, and seems like an idea that is long overdue.

I have to give ZoomCare excellent marks for what it attempts to do. It was Sunday morning and I felt very sick, and it was sure is great to find a neighborhood health provider open 7 days a week, 362 days a year with affordable services for a walk-in patient like me to start my treatment.

At one time, nearly a third of those who pneumonia would die of the illness as it would worsen. Today, with antibiotics probably no more than just about 5% will die. That's remarkably better odds of survival than any time in the past. Pneumonia is very serious and certainly requires medical treatment. ZoomCare has me on the road to recovery for an affordable price.