Retail Health Clinics Marching Through Midwest

This week, Take Care Health Systems announced that they are opening clinics in the Rockford, Illinois area.

In addition to this news, there is some increased attention to the retail health industry in the area. An article ("Would you like a prescription with that?") was published yesterday in Medill Reports Chicago about the clinics and their benefit to Chicago area residents. There are currently 28 Take Care clinics in Chicago, as well as 24 MinuteClinics.

It's encouraging for the industry that the physician interviewed in the article didn't view retail health as a threat but as filling an important gap in health care:

"They’re out filling a void that definitely needs to be filled," said Dr. John Liu, who treats patients at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital. He doesn’t see low-cost retail clinics as a threat to his practice.

There is still some public misunderstanding about the model (as can be seen, for example, in the title of the article), but well-spoken NPs like Laura Tucco, who works at a Chicago MinuteClinic, continue to sharpen the picture: "You hear it over and over from patients: they can walk in and they can get immediately assessed for treatment."