55% of the people who visit Walmart’s in-store clinics don’t have health insurance, says the New York Times.
Moving to upgrade its walk-in medical clinic business, Wal-Mart is set to announce on Thursday plans for several hundred new clinics at its stores, using a standardized format and jointly branded with hospitals and medical groups.
The first of the new Clinic at Wal-Mart walk-in centers, as they will be called, is to open in Little Rock, Ark., in April and be run by nurse practitioners employed by the St. Vincent Health System, a three-hospital group in central Arkansas.Wal-Mart also says it plans to brand 200 of the new clinics with RediClinics, one of the Revolution Health companies of Steven Case, the AOL co-founder. Those are to be operated in partnership with various local health care providers. RediClinic, which already operates 13 clinics in Wal-Mart stores, plans to open one of the new units in Atlanta in April and another in Dallas next summer.
“We have learned that people are willing to receive their health care from the front of a store or the back of a drugstore,” said Dr. John Agwunobi, a medical doctor who is a Wal-Mart senior vice president. “But customers also have said they would rather it be delivered by a trusted name, a local health care practice, a trusted local provider of care.”
The clinics feature convenient hours, posted price lists, short waiting times, and are able to administer treatment for common ailments such as runny noses and sore throats.
Would you use a Walmart clinic?
Wal-Mart Will Expand In-Store Medical Clinics [NYT]
(Photo:Mark Schiefelbein for The New York Times)
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@Okaasan: Mammograham: Was 103.89, now 105.88!!! Rollin’ back prices every day!
Uhm, no. But then again, I have taxpayer subsidized health insurance. There are times when it’s good to be a fed.
if walmart is serious about changing their culture, given their abilities, they could become a powerful force for good. make a profit and make society better.
I’ll never use one of these clinics- they are not the standard of healthcare, and they are expensive.
PS When I went to the CVS minute clinic, my copay was the sameas for a doctor, and they were able to do much, much less than a real doc’s office would. Waste of time.
Wal-Mart itself should have no bearing on these clinics…CVS, Rite Aid, and some grocery stores have been putting them in to. Wal-Mart just leases the space out (as it does for it’s portrait studio, optical, etc)
I had a painful ear infection at the beginning of the year and it was a week’s wait to get an appointment with my doctor. I would have loved to have an option to pop into Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, or anywhere. All I needed was some penicillin.
Upside: Martha Stewart IV Bag Stands
@Brad2723: Same here. I’m still trying to figure out how to go see my doctor M-F, 9am-4:30pm and still keep my M-F, 9am-5:30pm job that provides the health care in the first place. Didn’t Joseph Heller write a book about that?
@quagmire0: “Hi Dr. Nick!”
Does noone watch the Simpsons? That’s the quality of care you’d get imo.
Blue-vested Wal-Mart nurses with syringes and pills. Scary thought.
That’s like having Bin Laden come over to nanny your kids.
“…and are able to administer treatment for common ailments such as runny noses and sore throats.”
Because people can’t figure out how to buy cold medicine and aspirin in the Wal-Mart aisle and need a “doctor” to help them figure that out? Awesome.
I’m all for it. We need the McDonnalds version of health clinic. No brain surgery, but diagnosing streph throat or ear infection should not clog the real doctors. Plus they need to start competing on price.
I don’t know why so many people are gung ho to only see real doctors…in my experience, docs want to rush as quickly as possible, and usually slap a prescription of antibiotics at whatever ails you, needed or not.
On top of that, it’s nigh impossible to get a same day appointment unless you really pester them, and if you do, you’re in for a couple hours wait. Even if you have a premade appointment, good luck getting out in 2 hours, even though the doc stays with you two minutes tops!
The urgent care docs I’ve seen have rushed through too, but they’re sure a lot more convenient.
Just today, we had to take our little girl to the doctor to look at a sore finger. They refused to give her shots she was scheduled to get just a few days from now, meaning we have to come back just for that.
Now that’s customer oriented service!
@fizzyg: god yes. i know my body & i know how it behaves – just gimmie the script already & quit making me wait til the UTI’s moved to the kidneys or the Sinus infection’s moved into my ears/throat, lungs.
as for all those slamming RNP, I’ve always gotten better care with an RNP than any doctor. more time, more current, more accurate & more available.
@mikelotus: one would hope.
Wouldn’t want it for brain surgery, but for a case of mild tonsolitis or other similar ailment, it seems like a good idea. Also, say you are concerned about your cholestorol and need to get tested on a fairly regular basis – it would be nice to be able to drop in on a Saturday while the spouse shops for TP and get the blood takem. Better than taking off 2 hours in the middle of the work day to sit in a waiting room surronded by contagious sick people.
Buyer beware of course, but if this keeps the ERs from being clogged by kids with colds on the weekends when all “real” doctors are out golfing, then I am all for it.
One gets what one pays for.
eofm.
ps. The American dream is still alive and kicking. Anyone in this country can become just about anything they set their mind and will power to. You get out of this life what you put into it. If you saw yourself 10 years ago getting your health care out of a fucking Walmart, then kudos, you’ve arrived.
@ninjatales: But it’s not Wal-mart nurses. It’s Walmart providing a space, and the local medical partners providing nurse practioners.
Fortunately, I now have a doctor who will get me in quickly if I need immediate help, but I used to be with an office that would respond to an “I need to see the doctor TODAY” with a “how ’bout in 3 days? No. Well, we can sqeeze you in to see the nurse practioner tomorrow . . . ” In that case, yeah – I’d go see the nurse practioner in the walmart today, and while it might not be any cheaper for me, I bet they charge the insurance less than the doctor visit.
I’d like to thank Wal-Mart for providing an example of bad privatized health care that we here in Canada can point to when defending our public brand. Ironically we are defending it from the interests of, well, Wal-Mart and it’s private American health care provider partners.
The whole concept of some sort of EZ value short wait time clinic is absurd. Your healthy is REALLY complicated, honest, and I don’t think there’s a posted price for finding out you have to go get a biopsy for possible cancer. And then you’re going to have to walk by some greeter smiling with their eyes on your bag. Just peachy.
As for the RPN vs. MD debate: the answer is neither. When you have both, working as a team, you have the best quality of care. Keep the doctors available for diagnosis and have the RPNs doing the sanctioned procedures.
As a Nurse, I’d like to explain what a Nurse Practitioner is because it seems to confuse some people.
A Registered Nurse (RN), is a health care practitioner whose focus is on the care and management of a patient. A Nurse Practitioner (NP) is an advanced practice nurse with a masters degree that uses the Nursing foundation of hollistic-patient care, and adds advanced training in clinical assessment, diagnoses, pharmacology, physiology, pathology, etc., to add an additional level to the Nursing Model of patient care.
In the 1960s There weren’t enough Physicians willing to practice in the South Bronx. Physicians at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine began training Nurses with advanced clinical skills to treat these patients. This is how the NP was born.
NPs are highly trained in patient care. Just like primary care Physicans, an NP will recognize when referral to a Specialist is necessary. Because the Nursing Model of Care is the foundation of a Nurse Practioner practice, emphasis is put on communication, education, and treating the whole person… not just the symptoms.
Here is a link to a 2-year randomized study comparing comparing outcomes of patients assigned to a nurse practitioner or a physician in a primary care practice. In the sample of 406 adults, **no differences** were found between the groups in health status, disease-specific physiologic measures, satisfaction or use of specialist, emergency room or inpatient services.
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
I hope this clears some things up.
-Art
I think this is great. Some healthcare is certainly better than none.
The big question is, what about follow up? Will these NP’s schedule or even attempt to see a Patient for re-evaluation? Also, will one of these Care Providers sit on hold for 45 minutes trying report suspicion of child/elder abuse? Will they call an ambulance for a suspected MI? All remain to be seen.
The potential of this delivery system has HUGE profit potential via referral business to therapies, medical equipment vendors etc.