Despite many similarities, clinics, offices, and medical centers have their particularities that differentiate them from each other. Whether health professionals or patients, many people are confused when it comes to this subject, but the fact is that there are some differences between these locations and we will address them below.
Medical Office
The opening of an office must be done on behalf of an individual (document), and as the name suggests it should be dedicated to consultations. Generally, only one health professional works in a clinic, however, there are some professionals who end up sharing the space to perform their care.
Consultations may be attended with small procedures, but the main activities of a health professional in an office are clinical examinations, prescriptions, requests for imaging or laboratory tests, and if necessary, referral to other specialties.
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Clinics
Unlike offices, clinics must be opened through a company, that is, allowed only for legal entities. There are also consultations in clinics, but that is not the focus. Opening a clinic also requires a larger and better-equipped structure, because several health professionals will work there.
The health professionals of a clinic will act in the service both through consultation and in the provision of services with devices that allow diagnoses, and if the clinic contains an operating room and ICU, procedures such as low complexity surgeries may be performed.
Medical Center
Clinics and medical centers have some very similar aspects mainly in structure, for this reason, they are constantly confused. However, unlike clinics that are composed of a single specialty, specialists from different areas work in clinical centers, thus integrating more than one type of service in the same structure.