Laboratory News

Hospitals and Physician Groups Get Involved in Convenient Care Clinics

One of the more revolutionary trends in healthcare today is the introduction of walk-in clinics to retail outlets throughout the country.  Dark Daily has written about the plans of Wal-Mart and CVS to steadily expand the number of walk-in clinics in their stores.  Not surprisingly, physicians are feeling the competition and some are not happy about it.

Modern Healthcare reported in November that physicians have mixed feelings about these walk-in clinics.  Physicians agree that it is important that all people should seek healthcare when they need it. Many physicians also acknowledge that people are far more likely to prefer using a convenient walk-in clinic than visiting a traditional physicians' office.  Other physicians, however, argue that walk-in clinics are not staffed appropriately to see patients (many utilize only a nurse practitioner and have no doctors on-site), and that they encourage people to not seek out a primary care physician.

However, whether for or against the concept, hospitals, health systems, and physician groups are recognizing both consumer acceptance for the concept, along with the profitability of the walk-in clinic business model, and they want in on the action.  Hospitals use these retail clinics to grow their primary care practices through retail clinic referrals while easing the burden on their emergency room departments - which is where many of these patients would have gone without a retail clinic option.  Partnering with local hospitals helps the credibility of retail walk-in clinics, but there is increased responsibility for the hospitals with which they are associated, as patients see the affiliations as a "seal of approval" from the hospital.  Physicians' offices located close by walk-in retail clinics are partnering with the clinics.  In some cases, their physicians earn a fee for reviewing the cases seen by the nurse practitioners at the walk-in clinics.

Now, Mayo Clinic is entering the retail walk-in clinic business. The first Mayo Express Care opens early next year in Rochester, Minnesota.  Mayo's walk-in clinics will not be inside a store, but will be stand-alone storefronts in a strip mall.  Mayo has a prototype facility open called the Albert Lea Medical Center  (ALMC) Express Care clinic.  The clinic's nurse practitioners work closely with the physicians at Mayo Health System  and the clinic is connected to the Mayo electronic health record. This makes the clinic's files accessible to the system's primary care, urgent care, and emergency physicians. 

AtlantiCare Health Services, of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, operates hospitals, urgent care, and behavioral health facilities. It recently opened two retail walk-in clinics.  "Everybody seeing us gets a referral to a primary care physician," said Don Parker, President and CEO of AtlantiCare Health Services.  If patients already have a primary care doctor, that physician gets a summary from AtlantiCare's EHR within 24 hours.  If the doctor doesn't have an EHR, they get a faxed copy.  "It's much better for us to be involved than a for-profit group," added Parker.

For laboratories, the explosive growth in the number of retail walk-in clinics is likely to be a win-win development.  As consumers become more comfortable with the concept, it is likely that walk-in clinics will expand their menu of clinical services, including services that require a laboratory test as part of the diagnosis.  That means more testing for laboratories. At the same time, it requires laboratories to serve a new clinical environment, one that is often based in a retail store.

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