Sometimes going to the ER (emergency room) is absolutely necessary, while other times it’s better to go to urgent care. Whenever a health situation is life-threatening, or if you aren’t sure whether a situation could be life-threatening, then the ER is absolutely necessary. If you’re sure that a situation is not life-threatening, then you can go to urgent care instead. For example, a minor fracture is not life-threatening, but a compound fracture is. In fact, when a health situation is non-life-threatening, urgent care is more convenient than the ER. This is because urgent care doesn’t have significant wait times for patients with minor conditions, whereas the ER does. The ER has to treat higher-priority patients first. Additionally, urgent care is considerably less expensive than the ER for non-life-threatening situations. However, please remember that urgent care cannot deal with life-threatening situations, so this is when the ER is the only option.