If you have a cut that you can’t treat at home, the next step is to get stitches from a professional. In most cases, you can get stitches at urgent care more quickly and at a lower cost than the emergency room.
Urgent care has doctors and clinicians who specialize in treating a range of mild to moderate health issues that require fast care, including cuts that may need stitches.
While urgent care is a better choice for stitches than the emergency room in most cases, here’s what to consider before you head in for care.
Urgent care can do stitches for most mild to moderate cuts
Urgent care can usually treat cuts on nearly any part of the body, including minor ones caused by animals. Typically, cuts that are at least 1/2 inch long and 1/4 inch deep require stitches, but every cut is different so an urgent care doctor may still recommend stitches for smaller cuts.
If you think you need stitches, chances are that urgent care is the best place to start. Just make sure that:
- Bleeding responds to pressure, such as staunching or wrapping
- Children and adults can sit or lie still without sedation to receive stitches
Getting stitches at urgent care may cost less and go faster than at the emergency room
Emergency rooms are designed to treat illnesses and injuries that require advanced treatment or hospitalization, such as heart attacks and complex bone fractures. As a result, they treat people based on the severity of their symptoms not the order they arrive, so it can take longer to get to the front of the line. This also means that the cost of the care you receive may be much higher.
Since urgent cares handle mild to moderate health issues, the costs and the time you wait may be lower. HealthPartners’ urgent care locations even have a Save My Spot feature, so you can get in line before you arrive.
The emergency room is best for more severe cuts that need stitches
Emergency care is the best course of action for cuts that:
- Are on or near sensitive areas like lips or eyelids where a plastic surgeon may be required or preferred
- Are paired with symptoms of infection like fever, swelling, warmth or redness in the cut area, throbbing pain or sensitivity to touch, or pus
- Contain an object or debris, or occurred in dirty water
- Are deep penetrating wounds
- Have heavy bleeding that spurts or does not respond to pressure within 10 minutes
- Occur with other serious injuries
- Moderate to severe cuts or bites caused by an animal
If you believe that a cut could be life-threatening, call 911 or find an emergency room near you immediately.
If getting stitches at urgent care sounds like the right choice for your cut, find one near you
If you have a mild to moderate cut that may need stitches, urgent care is usually the best place to go. HealthPartners has over 20 urgent care locations across the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. Find one near you, and use Save My Spot to help you get seen as quickly as possible.
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