People who go to retail medical clinics at their local drugstore or pharmacy could end up spending more money than they want to on health care, a new study is reporting.
For this study, researchers wanted to see if retail clinics, which are often advertised as being more convenient and cost-effective than a doctor's office or a hospital's emergency department, really end up saving people money.
"Retail clinics have been viewed by policy makers and insurers as a mechanism to decrease health care spending," the researchers wrote. "However, retail clinics may actually increase spending if they drive new health care utilization."
To examine the link between retail clinics and spending, the team looked at claims and enrollment data from the health insurance company Aetna. From 2010 to 2012, 519,542 Aetna enrollees used a retail clinic and another 861,557 enrollees did not. The team focused on 11 low-risk health conditions, which made up 60 percent of all of the visits to retail clinics.
The researchers found that retail clinic users ended up spending more money on health care because they used these convenient facilities for minor conditions, such as sinusitis, that they generally would not have sought out medical care for if there were no clinics available.
Overall, 58 percent of retail clinic users received treatment for medical conditions that they normally would have stayed home for. This resulted in a net increase of $14 per person per year. Although spending did not increase by much, the rate of spending for low-acuity medical conditions did increase by 21 percent.
"These findings suggest retail clinics do not trim medical spending, but instead may drive it up modestly because they encourage people to use more medical services," said study senior author Ateev Mehrotra, an associate professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the RAND Corporation. "Retail clinics do offer benefits such as easier access to medical care, but the widely expected cost savings may not be realized."
The researchers concluded that the low cost and expanded hours at retail clinics make them an attractive option for many people.
The study was published in the policy journal Health Affairs.
