California physicians to launch retail health clinic without the store

The doctors decided to locate their venture in strip malls to get more space and more autonomy.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Nov. 27, 2006.

Two California internists are taking the in-store medical clinic concept outside the store.

Thomas W. Hopkins, MD, and Kenneth Redcross, MD, in January 2007 plan to open Medi-Stop, which, like an in-store clinic, will have nurse practitioners and physician assistants treating nonurgent conditions on a walk-in basis. But Medi-Stop will not operate inside a retail store with a pharmacy. Instead, its first location, in Natomas, Calif., will be in a strip mall.

The physicians say staying out of stores allows them to open facilities as big as 1,200 square feet, or up to six times larger than the usual in-store clinic. They also say that not having to ally with a retail chain will allow them more control.

That issue of control is one reason why Dr. Hopkins said he would rather run his own clinics than work with his affiliated hospital, Sutter Health, in overseeing six clinics the health system plans to open by year's end in Sacramento, Calif.-area Rite Aid drug stores.

"If I work for somebody else, they have their own agenda and I don't have any control," said Dr. Hopkins, a solo physician in Sacramento. "I'm in private practice because I can shape the care that I deliver for myself and I have always been an entrepreneur."

He does work with Sutter as a contributor to its local television program and he is also a health reporter for a Sacramento TV station.

Dr. Hopkins said he first thought about opening a retail clinic in 2003, after reading a newspaper story about the practice. He thought the concept was an "interesting" approach to improving access to care for the uninsured as well as for those who have insurance but can't get in to see their doctor.