Some doctors have Saturday hours, some don't. Not many primary care
physicians are open on Sundays, but you can usually find an urgent care
center open at least during the day and early evening. Failing that,
there's always the ER.

I don't know...the Yellow Pages? You might also try a local
"Ask-A-Nurse" line, as they usually have access to lists of local
physicians.

It's possible.

The emergency room is usually  much more expensive. That's because they need
to pay for all that expensive emergency equipment and the personal, just in
case there is a big crash crash or something.

I am not sure it costs them t hat much more  for  you to be there, but they
bill you for it anyway.

Some emergency deparrtments have acute care clinics, usually next to the
emergency department. These clinics are ideally suited for kinda-emergencies
(and if they are more serious than you think, you can go next door to the
ER). They often guarentee that you will be see within 15 minutes or 1/2
hour.

In addition, a lot  of communities have clinics (sometimes called docs in a
box) that offer acute care lile this.

THere are few ways you can find out about these.

1) Look in the yellow pages.
2) Call your local hospital and ask them about where to see a doctor witout
going to an emergency room.
3) Call your insurance company, HMO or PPO.

I guess you can also call your doctor's office and ask him or her. Or
better yet, you can ask at your next appointment.

Jeff

The problem I have with this thread and your other thread is that the
question and many of the answers assume that medical practices are the same
everywhere in this huge country.

Each and every state has different rules and regulations. More
significantly, insurance companies operate differently in different states
due to variability in state insurance regulations.

Getting down to the local level, and your question in this thread,
individual practices vary widely. There is not very much universality, with
each practice having different policies on the way they operate depending on
a huge number of  variables that can be very unique from neighborhood to
neighborhood, town to town, state to state. Some practices may be solo, some
group, some multispecialty group. Some won't accept certain insurance plans,
others a few miles away do. It all has to do with the unique pressures each
medical practice faces in its increasingly difficult struggle to pay the
bills, compete, and stay in business.

Medical practice in the US is free enterprise, for the most part, so such
business decisions as whether or not a particular practice is open on
Saturday / Sunday depends on market pressures, resource availbility, labor
costs, many, many other things. It's confusing for the consumer, no
question. The only thing you can do is call around. I'd suggest starting
with the yellow pages, and looking for Urgent Care centers in particular.
This is generally the label applied to organizations that provide medical
care outside of usual business hours.

HMc