Yup........This kinda reminds me of the Battles over Henry Kaiser's
Healthcare Revolution or the Paralegal Approach to Common Legal
Paperwork..........Doctors are Pariahs that DON'T like their Income
Turf to be Threatened..........Donchaknow............
"Wal-Mart health clinics divide US medics
Financial Times
Published: May 23 2007 16:18 | Last updated: May 23 2007 16:18
Can a retail store deliver healthcare? Wal-Mart, the largest US
retailer, thinks so, together with CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, the
leading US drug store chains. But as all four move ahead with plans to
expand "walk-in clinics" in their stores, the doctors of Illinois are
fighting back.
The state could be the first to impose stricter regulation on the new
generation of walk-in clinics, where nurse-practitioners can examine
patients, conduct basic procedures such as inoculation, and prescribe
for minor illnesses, while charging less than a doctor's practice.
Massachusetts is also considering whether and how to license the
state's first retail clinics, proposed by drugstore group CVS and its
MinuteClinics unit. And the industry expects more challenges ahead.
Walk-in clinics represent one of the most advanced and aggressive
attempts by US business and entrepreneurs to drive reform of the
healthcare system.
This year hundreds will be opened in some of the US's largest
drugstore and retail groups, and thousands of clinics could be running
in the next decade.
Advocates say the clinics will improve access to healthcare and reduce
costs; that they will reduce more expensive visits to hospital
emergency rooms; and that they will catch some illnesses before they
become serious and costly. As a result, physicians will have more time
for complex cases.
But the clinics also have a direct impact on doctors, who see
themselves as the gatekeepers of common, everyday healthcare.
Dr Rodney Osborn, president of the Illinois State Medical Society,
said: "This is a brand new animal. That's why we believe legislation
is important to guarantee patient safety ... They're not putting these
things in to provide healthcare; these people are businessmen."
Dr Arnold Milstein, chief physician at Mercer health consultancy, says
doctors are playing on patient fears to thwart change.
"[Doctors] wrap themselves in the holy garb of quality ... completely
ignoring the facts that all the research shows current care stinks,"
Dr Milstein says. "The weaknesses that are endemic in the current
healthcare system are being trotted out to block innovation and
change."
The clinics see themselves as advancing medical care, not diminishing
its quality, with a retailer's focus on service: the slogan of CVS's
MinuteClinic, for instance, is "You're sick, we're quick".
Hal Rosenbluth, chairman of clinic company Take Care and head of the
industry group Convenient Care Association, says any pushback against
the clinics actually validates their existence, and adds that the
concept is here to stay.
"That's what people are clamouring for - they want healthcare on their
terms not the system's," says Rosenbluth. Doctors' quality concerns,
he says, are merely anti-change "turf protection."
More than anything, however, the retail clinics show that business is
pushing for change on its own without waiting for government. And walk-
in clinics could do for US healthcare what low-cost Southwest Airlines
did for the airline industry, by making healthcare better, faster, and
cheaper.
"This is a conceivably disruptive innovation of our happy little
empire," Dr Milstein says."
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