Study argues against cost-savings benefits at clinics

While much has been made about retail clinics’ ability to trim healthcare costs, a study published in the journal Health Affairs this spring suggested that these walk-in health centers may actually boost overall spending by encouraging people to get care for minor problems that mostly would have cleared up on their own.

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The study — conducted by a six-person team of researchers from RAND; Health Policy and Governing Board of the Health Care Cost Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; Brigham and Women’s Hospital; University of Texas School of Public Health; and Harvard Medical School — found that 58% of retail clinic visits for several minor conditions represented a new use of medical services. Just 42% replaced a costlier doctor visit or trip to the hospital.



The authors concluded that the additional visits caused healthcare spending to increase by $14 per person per year.



Industry officials were highly critical of the results, calling them flawed and too narrowly focused on old data.



“It is not an accurate assessment of retail clinic cost savings and value,” CVS MinuteClinic president Andrew Sussman told the online publication California Healthline. “It is a step backward to think of people who did not have a primary care physician as excess utilization. It’s not excessive costs to take care of people who don’t have a doctor. In fact, we are reaching an underserved population with retail clinics.”



The study, he said, failed to explore the overall savings clinics can provide.



“If you think about a patient with the flu who doesn’t have a physician, they can get care at an inexpensive retail clinic on the weekend before their condition gets worse and they might need a costly hospitalization,” Sussman said.