From the point of view of the patient: An eye infection needs to be treated right away, so urgent care it is (since the eye doctor is backed up for a month or two). Urgent care won't test to see what the difficulty is, and just prescribes something. If that doesn't work, it's back to urgent care for another prescription. There's no point in making an appointment with the doctor since by the time a month or two has gone by, the eye infection is probably over. A month later, there it is again, and there again is the same situation. For three years.