Overuse of the Emergency Room or Urgent Cares. Urgent Cares and Emergency Rooms are expensive to your health plan. So you are encouraged to only use them when you really have to. Some of our patients will go to the emergency room and urgent care centers for minor things that we could have otherwise seen in our clinics. This can also expose your child unnecessarily to diseases in the emergency room. If you tend to do this, we ask that you give our doctors a chance to help you in the clinic whenever possible. If you are not sure if something is an emergency, since you can call our doctors 24 hours a day, feel free to call and ask. It is possible that your health plan will actually penalize your doctor because you go to the emergency room too much for minor reasons, and this may require us to have a discussion, even up to deciding you need to change doctors. Please help us help you by communicating with us before using this expensive resource.