R.I. Health Department gives green light to MinuteClinic

R.I. HEALTH DIRECTOR Dr. Michael Fine announced Wednesday that the department has approved CVS Caremark Corp.'s application to open seven walk-in MinuteClinic facilities throughout Rhode Island. Above, nurse practitioner Corissa Pond enters patient data inside her MinuteClinic in a Seekonk CVS/pharmacy. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
R.I. HEALTH DIRECTOR Dr. Michael Fine announced Wednesday that the department has approved CVS Caremark Corp.'s application to open seven walk-in MinuteClinic facilities throughout Rhode Island. Above, nurse practitioner Corissa Pond enters patient data inside her MinuteClinic in a Seekonk CVS/pharmacy. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

WOONSOCKET – The R.I. Department of Health has approved CVS Caremark Corp.’s application to open seven MinuteClinic facilities throughout Rhode Island.

The seven walk-in clinics – which would be located inside CVS/pharmacy retail stores in Cranston, East Greenwich, North Smithfield, Providence, Wakefield and Westerly and Woonsocket – would be the pharmacy chain’s first MinuteClinic locations in the Ocean State.

In his 19-page decision granting initial licensure for the MinuteClinics, R.I. Health Director Dr. Michael Fine addressed arguments of MinuteClinic opponents that the “convenience care” model of retailer health care providers like MinuteClinic could disrupt the primary care system in Rhode Island.

“CVS is a great Rhode Island health care company, and has led the nation in transforming the role of pharmacy retailers” through its work to provide access to vaccinations and its decision to end the sale of tobacco in its stores, Fine wrote. “Meanwhile, it has achieved real success in achieving cost savings for insurers by the active management of pharmaceutical costs.”

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Although the Department of Health heard testimony that MinuteClinics are likely to adversely impact Rhode Island’s primary care business model, Fine added, there is no clear evidence that denying MinuteClinic’s application to open locations in Rhode Island would bring the state any closer to achieving its health care goals.

“Even more, it is not clear that it is in the public interest to deny Rhode Islanders – as patients and as consumers – choice in accessing health care, even if that choice challenges the already vulnerable business model of primary care in Rhode Island,” Fine wrote.

Fine’s approval of the MinuteClinic application contained 22 stipulations, including that CVS post signs informing patients that they are not required to purchase prescription medications from CVS itself, that each MinuteClinic have a collaborating licensed physician available to be on-call during MinuteClinic hours, and that CVS pay $25,000 annually to the Rhode Island Physician’s Loan Replacement Fund for each MinuteClinic location that does not have a primary care provider within a five-mile radius to receive referrals for MinuteClinic patients.

A spokesperson for CVS Caremark did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the company expects to agree to the conditions outlined in the Department of Health’s approval of the request, or what the timeline might be for opening the seven Rhode Island MinuteClinics.

To view a copy of the full decision and the Health Services Council report recommending approval of the CVS application, visit www.health.ri.gov.

The approval constituted a pre-condition for licensure of the MinuteClinic facilities, according to a Department of Health statement. To obtain official licensure, CVS Caremark must complete additional forms for submission to the R.I. Office of Facilities Regulation.

MinuteClinic launched its first clinics in 2000 and now numbers more than 750 locations in 28 states and the District of Columbia. CVS plans to add 150 new clinics nationwide this year and 1,500 clinics by 2017.

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