Walking through the Edaville amusement park on a very hot late summer day, we noticed our son was having trouble walking. When he lowered his pants, I could see he had been bit by something and was having a terrible reaction, centralized behind his knee. We went to the park's First Aid; and they urged us to immediately go to a hospital or to the Southcoast Health Urgent Care facility (15 minute drive from the park). Since our son is ASD, I didn't want to subject him to an interminable wait at an emergency room.
I called my insurance, since we were vacationing from New York, and they said our son's visit would be covered at 90% (our family hits our deductible immediately every year).
On arrival, mid Sunday afternoon, there was one person ahead of us; and the monitor in the waiting room stated the wait would be 1:10. Upon check-in I emphasized my son is autistic and it would be very hard for him to wait so long ... perhaps it was a glitch with the monitor, but they ended up taking him inside within a few minutes, thankfully.
I was impressed with everyone's professionalism, from the person taking his history at intake, to everyone involved in his eventual procedure. I noticed (as it should be) everything was spotless. Everyone, even the maintenance man performing a repair in the waiting room, was patient with our son. A Nurse Practitioner advised us she could drain pus from his leg, but, if he was too resistant to the lidocaine injection, he might not accept the scalpel she would use to drain the abcess. So we agreed to have her scalpel without administering the lidocaine. I did request a numbing spray, which was used, but it just scared him. The Nurse Practitioner asked an orderly to come in and help us hold him down.
My son made him turn red! My son screamed a lot! In fact, our daughter, who was waiting for us in the reception area, said everyone could hear him. But, if we hadn't done this, we would have had to have gone to a hospital, and do this under sedation. After, the procedure, our son was ok; and he got a popsicle.
I got a very detailed outtake form. We were able to fill his antibiotics prescription conveniently in the CVS located in the Target in the same shopping center as the urgent care facility. We were told to return in two days to follow up.
Writing this after a few months have passed, in Brooklyn, with my son looking over my shoulder, he is reading this and remembers what happened. He says the nurse was nice. This memory does not upset him. Furthermore, I was very worried about what we would be charged for both visits, since what he had is considered surgery. I am happy to report the out of pocket was incredibly reasonable. In fact, we spent more on eating after our two visits, than on the out of pockets for both visits.
Although I hope you don't need to ever use it, I highly recommend the Southcoast Urgent Care facility in Wareham, MA.
*The urgent care facility is located in the Wareham Shopping Center which is not to be missed! It has a Black Dog Outlet, Target, LL Bean Outlet, and Sally Beauty. The Black Dog in particular runs end of season sales that are great for stocking up. I purchased about twenty items of clothing, and got a free canvas Black Dog bag, for approximately $150* read more