The Rise of Retail Clinics & What You Can Learn from Them

Retail medical clinics (also known as urgent care centers) have become quite prominent over the past couple of decades, taking a significant slice of the medical providers’ pie. But instead of bemoaning the rise of retail clinics, it’s smarter to learn from them and even use them to your advantage. Here, MOT takes a look at what patients like about retail clinics and how you can incorporate some of their traits into your practice.

Why are retail clinics so popular?

Let’s face it – it can be inconvenient and time-consuming to schedule with and visit a traditional medical practice, prompting many patients to opt for retail clinics.

“Convenience has been the main driver of their growth,” says Jason Hwang, executive director, healthcare, for Innosight Institute in Mountain View, Calif. “Retail clinics, with their accessible locations and walk-in service, have been smart to capitalize on common medical issues that people are comfortable managing away from the doctor’s office.”

Low prices and aggressive marketing are additional factors contributing to retail clinics’ success, Hwang adds. “Retail clinics have lower costs because they employ lower-cost providers who work in lower-cost settings. In contrast, traditional practices must be capable of managing the entire spectrum of human illness – simple and complex, acute and chronic, routine and urgent – which continuously drives up their overhead costs in order to keep up with the needs of the market.”

Runoff between ERs and primary care physicians is another reason cited for retail clinics’ boom. “People need to see a doctor and are squeezed between overcrowded ERs and overworked and understaffed PCPs,” says Tom Cusumano, managing partner in sales and marketing for Doctors Express Newark Urgent Care Center in Newark, Calif. “Urgent care centers do play a vital role in helping to fill this vacuum with high-quality, convenient, cost-effective and, in many cases, compassionate care – oftentimes in a very speedy manner that meets the needs of people with hectic schedules.”

What can traditional practices learn from retail clinics?

Most retail clinics are avid users of EMR systems, which helps streamline the practice of medicine, reduce paperwork and errors and increase patient flow. Meanwhile, some traditional practices have been slow to move from paper records to digital, Cusumano notes.

Retail clinics may help you treat patients who need more time and attention given to their medical conditions than you can afford to give. Retail clinics that specialize in a particular condition can help patients manage chronic or long-term conditions such as weight loss that can require significant one-on-one time between doctor and patient.

“Physicians in traditional private practice are extremely busy meeting the medical needs of their patients,” says Tasha B. Wallace, D.O., with Wallace Family Practice in Lehigh Acres, Fla. “Weight loss is special in that it requires much more time for education and encouragement. To be effective, I recommend this to occur with each patient on a weekly basis. Physicians in private practice cannot have this load added onto their already very busy schedules.”

Retail clinics also help take the burden off busy practices for minor or urgent issues that don’t require a PCP. “Physicians must realize that growing portions of their current practice can and should be managed by other members of the healthcare team,” says Hwang. “Physicians will be most effective when they become leaders of care teams and are able to delegate tasks to others.”

Be sure to do your due diligence on any retail clinic you recommend to patients, just as you would for all medical referrals.

What advantages do traditional practices have over retail clinics?

Unlike traditional practices, most retail clinics don’t get their patients via referrals, but have to rely on advertising, marketing and strategic real estate decisions to find their customers, points out Kent Holtorf, M.D., founder of Holtorf Medical Group, a large private physician group with practices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Also, there’s a lot to be said for developing long-term relationships with your patients, and this usually cannot be achieved in the retail clinic model. “Urgent care is episodic,” Cusumano explains. “A PCP may see a patient with diabetes, for example, and will need to see that patient weekly or monthly or quarterly for many years. The PCP will often get to know their patients on a very personal level. This will usually not occur with urgent care.”

Realize, too, that most patients still want to come to you first, Hwang says. “Traditional practices are still patients’ preferred choice for almost all care, and it will especially remain so for complex conditions that are best managed by physicians,” he points out.

(Article by Carrie Rossenfeld)