A Market for Chronic Care?
It’s not just sore throats and flu shots anymore. Walgreens today became the first retail store chain to expand its health care services to include diagnosing and treating patients for chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high cholesterol…
Retail clinics generally appeal to consumers looking for convenience and cost savings. Costs are roughly 30 percent to 40 percent less than similar care at doctor’s offices and 80 percent cheaper than at an emergency room, according to a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Managed Care.
This is from Kaiser Health News.
This is market driven care. LPNs with data trees to diagnose and treat symptoms are way cheaper than an 8 minute visit from an overworked doctor. Plus the interconnectivity with large retailers probably helps reduce some of the cost push from double marginalization.
I have noticed these popping up on every street corner. Hopefully Walmart won’t take up the cause. Can’t imagine sitting in a waiting room full of walmartians.
I love it when entreprenuers take up market driven causes to improve some sector of the economy.
I love this trend. This will be for sure be an effective way to bring down the cost of health care. No doubt this will hopefully become a popular trend in the health care consumption field.
I think this should be combined with also having nursing practice at the spot. The combination of the two will no doubt help people bring down the cost of care.
I wonder if they offer service for out of pocket patient who may choose not to have insurance.
This is encouraging in my eyes. I really hope this trend proves successful and proliferates into bigger forms of care which end up fundamentally changing the way our health care system works.
Hopefully these trends will end up lowering costs. However, I am no economist and our health care industry is far too complex and dysfunctional for me to know if it would or not.
I think franchises like walmart should try to enter the health care industry, may this way we can actually bring down the health care cost and bring some powerful competition that can take on the hospital running cartels.
Sandeep, wow, you bring up a very interesting point. I do indeed welcome the vision you are alluding to. Health care lacks competition, we must import more free market forces into this sector of the economy.