Association Between the Opening of Retail Clinics and Low-Acuity Emergency Department Visits.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: We assess whether the opening of retail clinics near emergency departments (ED) is associated with decreased ED utilization for low-acuity conditions. METHODS: We used data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Emergency Department Databases for 2,053 EDs in 23 states from 2007 to 2012. We used Poisson regression models to examine the association between retail clinic penetration and the rate of ED visits for 11 low-acuity conditions. Retail clinic "penetration" was measured as the percentage of the ED catchment area that overlapped with the 10-minute drive radius of a retail clinic. Rate ratios were calculated for a 10-percentage-point increase in retail clinic penetration per quarter. During the course of a year, this represents the effect of an increase in retail clinic penetration rate from 0% to 40%, which was approximately the average penetration rate observed in 2012. RESULTS: Among all patients, retail clinic penetration was not associated with a reduced rate of low-acuity ED visits (rate ratio=0.999; 95% confidence interval=0.997 to 1.000). Among patients with private insurance, there was a slight decrease in low-acuity ED visits (rate ratio=0.997; 95% confidence interval=0.994 to 0.999). For the average ED in a given quarter, this would equal a 0.3% reduction (95% confidence interval 0.1% to 0.6%) in low-acuity ED visits among the privately insured if retail clinic penetration rate increased by 10 percentage points per quarter. CONCLUSION: With increased patient demand resulting from the expansion of health insurance coverage, retail clinics may emerge as an important care location, but to date, they have not been associated with a meaningful reduction in low-acuity ED visits.

The evolution of retail clinics in the United States, 2006-2012.

In the recent decade, retail clinics have emerged to offer routine preventative and acute care services by nonphysician providers, with predictable wait times, more convenient venues, and posted prices. This article evaluates the evolution of retail clinics between 2006 and 2012 and examines the yearly openings and closings of clinics by location, owner, operator, and other important characteristics. The Merchant Medicine database was used. It is the only database of its kind that includes every retail clinic opening and closing since 2006. The data are collected on a monthly basis through operator self-report, telephone calls to operators, and monitoring of operator Web sites and articles in local newspapers. A growth period of 2006 through 2008 can be attributed to what was referred to at the time as a "land grab," in which competing operators sought to be the first to open in new markets. In 2008, with the start of the general economic recession, numerous clinics shut down during the slow spring and summer months and others closed altogether. The industry remains dominated by large retail pharmacy operators, and the involvement of hospital systems in retail clinic ownership is a recent and interesting phenomenon. An important question to address is the following: Will retail clinics remain as just a convenient way for busy insured patients to seek care afterhours and on weekends, or can they have a more significant impact in a primary care system on the brink of collapse?