More and more Americans are using retail clinics to take care of minor health needs, probably because they are quicker and more convenient than going to a doctor or emergency room, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Offering their findings in the American Journal of Managed Care, the researchers said that use of retail medical clinics by adults insured by Aetna increased tenfold between 2007 and 2009.
“It is clear that enrollees are ‘voting with their feet’ and that retail clinics are meeting an unmet need for simple acute care and/or addressing a shortage of traditional healthcare providers,” Scott Ashwood of the Rand Corp. and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine wrote.
It’s not clear whether the trend will save the U.S. health care system money, they said, but it appears that the walk-in clinics, found in big-box stores or chain drug stores, are going to be increasingly important. The clinics are often staffed by registered nurses or physician assistants instead of by more-expensive medical doctors.
Retailers have long offered flu shots and spot blood pressure or cholesterol tests, mostly to drive traffic to their pharmacies, but the clinics take that care a step further. Earlier this month Wal-Mart said it planned to expand its range of on-site clinics.
The researchers studied more than 13 million people with Aetna private health insurance, mapping their use of retail clinics for conditions such as ear infections, flu, urinary-tract infections, and allergies from 2007 through 2009.
“By 2009, 6.9 percent of all visits for the 11 conditions were to a retail clinic,” they wrote. “If these trends continue, health plans will see a dramatic increase in retail clinic utilization. While use is increasing on average, it is particularly increasing among young, healthy, and higher income patients living close to retail clinics.”
The researchers were not able to ask the patients why they were using the clinics, so they were unable to tell whether people were visiting them instead of going to a doctor or emergency room. If they are, that could mean lower health care costs because care at retail clinics is 30 percent to 40 percent less expensive than similar care provided at a doctor’s office and 80 percent less expensive than at an emergency room, the researchers said.
“We found that healthier, young adults were the most common users of retail clinics. This group is less likely to have a primary care provider and therefore might visit a retail clinic because they have no alternative,” the researchers wrote.
However, if the patients are using clinics on top of their usual care, they could end up adding to overall costs.
Over the three years of the study, the rate of use of retail clinics rose from 0.6 visits per 1,000 people per month in January 2007 to 6.5 visits per 1,000 enrollees in December 2009.
“It appears that those with a higher income place more value on their time, and will use clinics for convenience if they have a simple health issue such as a sore throat or earache,” Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of Rand and the University of Pittsburgh said in a statement.
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