Over the past few years, big box retailers like Wal-Mart and pharmacy chains like CVS/Caremark and Walgreens have opened health clinics in hundreds of their stores across the country. Staffed primarily by nurse practitioners — registered nurses with advanced training — the clinics provide immunizations, health screenings and treatment for common ailments like sore throats, earaches and pink eye.
Open evenings and weekends, and with visits usually taking no more than 15 minutes — eliminating the need for appointments — the clinics have proven very popular with the public. The Convenient Care Association estimates the clinics, which now number around 900, have served over 2,000,000 patients since the first opened in 2000. And the clinics claim a 98 percent satisfaction rate.
When state regulators decided to allow CVS’ MinuteClinics into Massachusetts last week, it might have seemed a difficult choice to reconcile. Consumers can have more access and shorter wait times for routine care, but they’ll have to sacrifice ongoing relationships with their doctor.
When the vote was tallied, CVS won and it was the patient-doctor relationship that lost. While it’s clear that consumers are looking for quicker and more access to health care providers, episodic visits to a retail clinic are a Band-Aid and not an adequate substitute for access to quality coordinated care provided by physicians.
A CVS in Weymouth is slated to be the first location to launch a MinuteClinic this fall, followed by 20 to 30 others in Greater Boston. The Boston Public Health Commission is looking for ways to block the clinics from coming to pharmacies in the city. This is a decision that other cities and towns will have to grapple with as CVS decides on which of its stores will house the clinics.
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