Over the past decade or two amazing advances have been made in the field of medicine. Diseases that were virtual death sentences can now be treated successfully. Sadly, the vast majority of people still have to accept these diseases as death sentences because they cannot afford the exorbitant fees charged by doctors and hospitals. Those without medical insurance have very few options and without a walk in physician clinic Annandale VA patients will often have no options at all.

The more than eleven thousand clinics in the United States are spread over some nine thousand regions. This makes them fairly accessible to most people. Some of these clinics are run by pharmacies in shopping centers, others by charities and churches and a few of them by local authorities such as town councils. The majority of these clinics are free of charge but a few charges a small fee.

There are no treatment standards shared by all the clinics. The levels of service that they offer vary. There are some that will only accept emergency cases. Others concentrate upon child care and family planning. Many clinics, especially those run by pharmacies, offer a wider range of services ranging from treating minor wounds to providing relief for the symptoms of common ailments.

Even though the majority of clinics offer very limited services, they remain extremely popular. Almost everyone lives reasonably close to one. None of these clinics ever discriminates in any way such as insisting on proof of residency. Anyone can go to a clinic and expect to be helped without having to answer awkward questions. Another benefit is that most clinics are open from early to late.

Critics say that while the intentions of those running these clinics are admirable, they do not offer proper medical care at acceptable standards. They accept too many patients and waiting times can therefore be many hours. At the same time, these clinics are short of all resources. They do not have enough staff and patients are therefore processed as quickly as possible which inevitably result in inferior service.

Another issue worrying critics is the fact that precious few clinics have a doctor in attendance on a regular basis. Patents are seen by nurses who are not trained to make diagnoses and who are not authorized to prescribe medication. A shortage of vital equipment such as X ray machines makes matter even worse. The result is that most clinics cannot do much more than treat symptoms instead of the real problem.

Critics are particularly worried about the fact that clinics treat patients without any access to their medical histories. They do not know what medication they used in the past, whether they suffer from allergies or whether they have a family history for certain conditions. Without this history it is often extremely difficult to decide upon a treatment regime and it is easy to make mistakes.

Some activists argue that the medical profession should be regulated much more stringently. Systems need to be devised to make proper medical care more available to the host of people that cannot pay the present high fees. One thing is certain, however and that is that many people suffer and die due to a lack of proper medical care.