Big retail health clinics agree to AAFP operating guidelines

A newly formed quick-care trade group also aims to collaborate with physician organizations.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. March 5, 2007.

Three firms that account for about 75% of the fast-growing retail health clinic industry last month agreed in writing to the American Academy of Family Physicians' "desired attributes" for such operations.

Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic Inc., Pennsylvania-based Take Care Health Systems Inc. and Houston-based RediClinic agreed to limit the scope of services they offer, practice evidence-based medicine, establish formal connections with physician practices in the local community, set up referral systems and share medical records electronically.

The AAFP set out its attributes in December 2005 in response to physicians' concerns that store-based health clinics could compromise quality, threaten continuity of care and substitute for primary care physicians as a medical home.

"The market is going to tell us whether [retail clinics] succeed," said Rick Kellerman, MD, AAFP president. "The thing we need to be concerned about is patient safety. If they just come in and plop down in a community without thinking about what they are going to do with a patient who has a problem beyond the scope of what they're taking care of, it won't do the patient any good and it won't do the health care system any good."

Most of the country's approximately 250 retail clinics are based in grocery or drug stores, have weekend and evening hours, and are staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants who are remotely supervised by a physician. They usually charge less than doctors and treat a limited set of relatively simple conditions, such as ear infections.