Study finds retail clinics not yet having big impact

MINNEAPOLIS – Even though retail clinics such as MinuteClinic are less expensive for patients than many doctors’ offices and urgent-care clinics, the new facilities have yet to make a big enough impact on their communities to reduce overall health care costs.
That is the bottom line of a new study by Minneapolis-based HealthPartners published in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs, which includes several articles on new models for health care delivery and the extent to which they are succeeding in their goals.
For the study, Marcus Thygeson, an associate medical director at HealthPartners, and three colleagues examined 628,513 episodes of care for the insurer’s members between 2003 and 2006. Only 3.2 percent occurred at MinuteClinic facilities.
The study measured the overall cost per episode of care, which included the cost of a medical examination and laboratory and pharmacy costs, for sore throats, ear infections, sinus infections, conjunctivitis and urinary tract infections. The cost for each of those conditions in 2003, before MinuteClinic became part of the HealthPartners network, was compared with the costs from 2004 to 2006.
Overall, the cost increased by 14.1 percent over the four years, but not evenly so: In emergency departments, it rose by 20.3 percent, while in doctors’ offices, it rose by 12.7 percent; at urgent-care facilities, by 11.9 percent, and at MinuteClinic locations, by 12.2 percent.
“The data does not support the idea that MinuteClinic or other retail clinics has had any negative impact on rising health care costs,” Thygeson said.
The study did find, however, that retail clinics saved $50 to $55 per episode of care versus other providers. However, they only handled 6 percent of episodes of care involving the five conditions reviewed, “and the impact on overall cost and quality remains undetermined.”
An abstract of the study is available at www.healthaffairs.org. The full article may also be purchased online.