Health Care - Health & Wellness
As you might expect, Chicago has some of the most respected and renowned hospitals in the country. You are never too far from excellent health care, emergency services, and ongoing treatment facilities. The City of Chicago runs several discount walk-in health clinics that serve a wide variety of residents. There are also an amazing number of alternative-care practitioners. Many even take health insurance plans, though others do not, so it’s helpful to ask first if that’s important to you. While there are too many to list all the options here, we have included two websites that provide a database of doctors of all varieties to help you find the one that fits your needs.
1. Chicago Department Of Public Health
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (312) 747-9884
Address: 333 S. State St.
Description: The CDPH monitors, diagnoses, and investigates health status and problems in the greater Chicago community. It also helps to educate and empower people about health topics; develop health-related policies; enforce laws and regulations that protect health safety; connect people to the health resources they need; evaluate health services; and more. On the CDPH website, you can find Chicago public health information, data, and research. There’s also information on neighborhood health clinics, mental health clinics, specific services for sexually transmitted infections, and clinics geared toward women, infants, and children, and other essential public health services and programs.
2. Illinois Department Of Public Health
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (217) 782-4977
Address: 535 W. Jefferson St., Springfield
Description: With its more than 200 different programs, the IDPH monitors and maintains public health in conjunction with local agencies. Their services cover health-care regulation, health promotion, health protection, men’s and women’s health, planning and statistical collection and analysis, and preparedness and responses to public health issues.
3. Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (773) 975-1600
Address: 836 W. Wellington Ave.
Description: Part of the 12-hospital Advocate Health Care network in the state, Illinois Masonic was named one of the top 100 hospitals in the country by Thomson Reuters in 2010 and 2011, one of just six in the Chicago area that made the list. The faith-based Advocate grew out of the merging of the Evangelical Health Systems Corporation and Lutheran General Health System. The 408-bed Illinois Masonic is acclaimed for its Level I trauma center, Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the city’s largest certified midwifery program, and its Heart and Vascular Institute.
4. Children’s Memorial Hospital
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (800) KIDS-DOC, (773) 880-4000
Address: 2300 Children’s Plaza (Lincoln Avenue an
Description: A host of awards—including a US News & World Report ranking as one of the top 30 best children’s hospitals in the country, and 11th out of 75 children’s hospitals in America as reported in a survey by Parents magazine—testifies to the extraordinary care here. Families from every state and more than 35 countries bring their children here for everything from cardiac care to liver transplantation, gastroenterology to plastic and reconstructive surgery. A brand new state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to open in June 2012 at 225 E. Chicago Ave., on the campus of the hospital’s academic partner, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
5. Northwestern Memorial Hospital
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (312) 926-2000
Address: 251 E. Huron St.
Description: The sprawling Northwestern Memorial campus comprises numerous medical buildings and clinics, testing centers, learning centers, rehabilitation facilities, psychiatric institutes, physicians’ offices, and two hospitals, including this one. The other, the Prentice Women’s Hospital (250 E. Superior St.), is a new 1-million-square-foot, 328-bed facility for obstetrics, gynecology, gynecology-oncology, breast and plastic surgery, hematology-oncology, and neonatal intensive care; its birthing center boasts capacity for 13,600 deliveries a year and it’s always busy with babies. Overall, Northwestern ranked number-one in Chicago as the metro area’s best hospital by US News & World Report.
6. Rush University Medical Center
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (312) 942-5000
Address: 1650 W. Harrison St.
Description: This academic medical center includes the 676-bed hospital, Rush University, Rush Oak Park Hospital, and an integrated network of providers that combine to make up Rush Health. US News & World Report has included Rush in its rankings of the area’s best hospitals, and Rush is the preferred medical facility for the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls teams.
7. Swedish Covenant Hospital
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (773) 878-8200
Address: 5145 N. California Ave.
Description: Serving Chicagoans for more than 125 years, this academic community hospital is rooted in the Evangelical Covenant Church, but serves a wide range of patients in a wide range of areas, from cardiology to family health, dermatology to weight management. It includes a well-known midwifery program, as well as a sleep and neurodiagnostic center, a back institute, and mental health services. It also offers innovative robotic surgical services, and the Chicago Back Institute for treatment of spine conditions.
8. University Of Chicago Medical Center
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (773) 702-1000
Address: 5841 S. Maryland Ave.
Description: Besides a 541-bed general medicine and surgical hospital, the Hyde Park–based UCMC includes Comer Children’s Hospital; Chicago Lying-in Hospital for maternity and women’s care; the outpatient Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine, which houses much of UCMC’s diagnostic and outpatient treatment services, along with other outpatient locations around Chicagoland; the top-ranked University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine; and the Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital, an adult inpatient care facility that includes the emergency department and several intensive-care units. Atop Mitchell Hospital is a specially equipped medical helicopter that serves the emergency care center’s Level I pediatric trauma unit, as well as a burn unit and perinatal unit.
9. University Of Illinois Medical Center
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Address: 1740 W. Taylor St.
Description: More new physicians earn their medical degrees at UIC than any other medical school in the country. Within the UIMC are a 496-bed tertiary hospital, outpatient facility, specialty clinics, and the university’s six colleges of health sciences. It’s nationally recognized for minimally invasive surgery, live donor transplants, and its high number of National Institutes of Health–funded research grants.
10. Chicago Center For Orthopedics Urgent Care
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Address: 4646 N. Marine Dr.
Description: Got a weekend-warrior injury that can’t wait? For children and adults, the experts at this walk-in clinic (though appointments are appreciated and encouraged) can see you on Sunday. Really. Hours are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
11. Michigan Avenue Immediate Care
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (312) 201-1234
Address: 180 N. Michigan Ave.
Description: In a brand-new facility in the Loop, this no-appointment-necessary clinic sees patients who have acute or nonurgent medical needs. It is a certified yellow fever vaccine clinic and offers pre-travel consultations and vaccines and is popular with students. MAIC also offers X-ray services.
12. Northwest Immediate Care
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (773) 754-3500
Address: 4332 N. Elston Rd.
Description: Open 365 days a year, this facility treats patients of all ages, accepts most insurance, and offers services ranging from minor abrasions to coughs to headaches to school physical exams. They also have X-ray, other lab facilities, and a dental clinic, and they can perform ultrasounds and physical therapy. The website lets you check first to see how long the wait time is.
13. Physicians Immediate Care
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (877) 875-4200
Description: With 16 locations in and around Chicago, these walk-in clinics provide general treatment and care of illness and injury such as sprains, colds, fractures, and flu, as well as occupational medicine and physical therapy services. Other services include physicals for school, sports, and immigration. No appointments are needed, and they are open 7 days a week.
14. Chicago Healers
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Description: You can rest assured that the MD, chiropractor, life coach, holistic dentist, nutritionist, or any other of the approximately 200 integrative medicine and healing practitioners listed on this website will serve you well. Though a free service for users, the providers listed on the site have gone through a screening process that includes phone interviews, completion of a detailed questionnaire, and referrals. Besides finding the right person for your needs (and reading through their extensive provider profile), you can learn more about each modality, follow practitioners’ blogs, subscribe to a monthly newsletter, and find out about upcoming alternative healing-related events, workshops, and classes.
15. Chicago Medfinds
City: Chicago, IL
Category: Health Care
Description: Offering a comprehensive online search tool, Medfinds makes it easy to find an alternative medicine provider of any kind in Chicago (there are versions in nearly 20 cities across the country). The caveat is that the practitioners listed are not ranked or screened in any way by Medfinds, so it’s up to consumers to do their own due-diligence in learning more about the person, but it’s still a great place to start.