Retail Clinics Provide Same Or Better Quality At Lower Costs, Study Says

While awaiting President Obama’s speech to Congress on healthcare reform next Wednesday, I will take a short break from the healthcare reform debate and go back to a previous topic that I have discussed in the past, retail clinics.

A new study published a few days ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine is the first of its kind in comparing cost of care and quality outcomes at retail clinics vs. other settings such as urgent care centers, physician offices and emergency rooms. The significance of this study is that it gets to the essence of a very important issue: do retail clinics provide value to customers and to the healthcare system overall, when compared to other more traditional care settings? When healthcare experts think about value, they define it as quality/cost, or more informally as “how much are we getting for our dollar?”

The researchers studied 3 specific conditions: otitis media (i.e. ear infections), pharyngitis (inflammation of the throat or pharynx), and urinary tract infections. They looked at 2100 “episodes of care” defined as an initial visit, follow-up visit, drugs prescribed and tests ordered.

In terms of cost, each episode of care cost $110 at a retail clinic vs. $156 at an urgent care center, $166 at a physician’s office, and $560 at the emergency room.

Quality was defined in terms of performance on 14 different indicators, as well as whether the patient received preventative care. The results showed that retail clinics did as well or better than the other settings of care on these measures.

The importance of these findings, and it is good to remember that it is only one study, is that we finally have empirical evidence that, for specific conditions, retail clinics provide as good or better quality of care at a lower cost than other more traditional care settings.

Doctors (especially pediatricians) and other doubters that have in the past raised concerns about the allegedly low quality of care provided at retail clinics should take a look at this study and possibly reconsider their assessment.

The whole idea behind reform is to change our healthcare so it can provide better quality at lower costs, meaning to provide better value to patients and taxpayers. Retail clinics seem to be a step in that direction, even if it is for a limited number of conditions.

Next, I am back to healthcare reform issues as I will look at the best and worse aspects of the American healthcare system.

About Amer Kaissi

I teach courses and do research in healthcare management Amer Kaissi's profile Amer Kaissi's blog

Post new comment

I have actually been using hospital clinics all my life, my children went to the poor peoples clinics, and so did I.
I now have medicare because I'm disabled, so now I have my own doctors. In real offices.
I would say the care is of the same quality, however, the MD's in the clinics don't prescribe adequate pain medication.
I had a pinched nerve, in my neck that could have required surgery and was put in a type of at home neck pully, but the MD only prescribed one day of strong pain killer, and I wasn't going back to the clinic for a week. I called the nurse of course, but she told me to forget it. that the Doctor wouldn't give anymore than a day worth.
I'm not a drug addict. but for a week I was in so much pain, I just don't understand what he was thinking.

This last summer I went to a dentist at a government run clinic. it hardly cost anything. but again, with an infection and a needed root canal, the doctor only prescribed antibiotics. NO PAIN MEDICINE. I guess they think that ALL POOR PEOPLE ARE DRUG ADDICTS, LOOKING TO GET HIGH OR SOMETHING!!!!
When my teenager broke his hand he went to the ER and all's they gave him was tylenol before they set the fracture. and nothing else. we went to another hospital to have it looked at again and were treated much better, at least he wasn't in pain when they had to reset it again.
the problem with doctors who don't make the kind of money they want is that they have the prescription pads and take out their frustrations on the poor people who have no voice. and thats the truth!

Healthcare Hacks