Most retail clinics, popping up in drugstores and big box retailers around the country, are staffed by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants who treat only minor ailments. But MedStar plans to open clinics staffed by doctors in four Rite Aid stores in Maryland and DC, with the possibility of expanding into a dozen more clinics, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Reluctant to deal with the hassles of airport security, sales executive Michael D’Souza generally packs the syringes he needs for his daily medication in a bag that he checks when he travels.
The strategy backfired for the Toronto resident recently when he needed the medication while he was stuck during a four-hour delay at Newark Liberty. D’Souza found new needles when an airport customer service rep told him about a pharmacy that opened late last year in Terminal C.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pharmacy at an airport,” he says. “But I thought: What a good idea. People are traveling sick all the time.”
Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care could soon offer customers a discounted debit card to be used for services at all company locations.
The Jacksonville-based urgent care company will start the program as a pilot project. The debit card would provide a $400 value for a cost of $299, and would be valid for Solantic’s urgent care and wellness products. The card would be good for one year after the date of purchase.
The project will begin by targeting employers who might want to offer the card as a benefit to employees. Solantic CEO Karen Bowling said the program will begin as soon as the company finalizes an agreement with an employer, which could happen in the next few weeks.
“This will appeal to employers who are not able to offer [full health] benefits,” she said. “At least by offering the card they are providing them with something.”
Source: Jacksonville Business Journal
Original Publication Date: March 28, 2008
Richard Scott, who headed Columbia/HCA Inc. during the heydays of the mid 1990s, never really left the health care scene after quitting the company he founded in 1997. In 2001, he’s founded Solantic Corp. which today operates 15 urgent care centers in Florida.
Scott, in town this week to talk at a Palm Beach Atlantic University lecture series, says he has plans to open five urgent care centers in Palm Beach County in the next three years. The centers aim to provide care to people who don’t have a regular physician ( or need one after hours) and don’t want the expense of time and money of going to a hospital emergency room. A number of urgent care centers have opened in the county and nationwide to meet needs of uninsured and people who can’t get into see their doctor when they need to.
Unlike some retail health clinics that are staffed by nurse practitioners, Solantic has physicians at all of its urgent care centers. Services generally cost $59 to $169.
Millions of Americans got flu shots in the Fall of 2007, hoping to ward off the worst of the season. About four out of 10 could be very disappointed when they get sick anyway.
According the the CDC in Atlanta, the virus that is most prevalent across the nation is not covered by this year’s flu shot.
“Right now, about half of the influenza ‘A’ which is the H3N1 virus, and most of influenza ‘B’ are not covered well by this year’s flu vaccine,” said Dr. Nathan Newman, Medical Director of Solantic.
Doctor Newman is hopeful we’ll have a flu season like 2003, the last time flu shots missed the virus mark.
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