Shutting Down Healthcare Competition
Drugstore Clinics Spread, and Scrutiny Grows - New York Times
The concept has been called urgent care "lite": Patients who are tired of waiting days to see a doctor for bronchitis, pinkeye or a sprained ankle can instead walk into a nearby drugstore and, at lower cost, with brief waits, see a doctor or a nurse and then fill a prescription on the spot.
With demand for primary care doctors surpassing the supply in many parts of the country, the number of these retail clinics in drugstores has exploded over the past two years, and several companies operating them are now aggressively seeking to open clinics in New York City.
But many regulators and doctors are only interested in one thing -- shutting down these low cost competitors.
New York State regulators are investigating the business relationships between drugstore companies and medical providers to determine whether the clinics are being used improperly to increase business or steer patients to the pharmacies in which the clinics are located.
And doctors' groups, whose members stand to lose business from the clinics, are citing concerns about standards of care, safety and hygiene, and they have urged the federal and state governments to step in to more rigorously regulate the new businesses.
"We've got big problems in health care, and this is not the answer," said Dr. Rick Kellerman, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
State officials acknowledged the clinics' appeal. But they said they were looking into possible violations of state law prohibiting unauthorized corporations like pharmacies, which are licensed only to provide pharmaceutical services, from delivering medical care.
"If we determine the business corporations are practicing medicine, then they are illegally practicing the profession and we have the authority to investigate," said Frank Munoz, associate commissioner of the State Education Department's Office of the Professions.
The American Medical Association, contending that patients might be sacrificing quality for convenience or seeking help at drugstore clinics for problems that should be addressed by their doctors or a hospital, has proposed a series of guidelines, including a requirement that the clinics have a "well-defined and limited scope." The association has also urged federal and state governments to investigate how the clinics operate.
But New York State officials are still looking at these "physician based models," Mr. Munoz said, to determine whether there were any inappropriate connections between the prescribing doctors at the clinics and the pharmacy's bottom line.
It sounds to me like someone is afraid of a little competition. Rather than doing whatever possible to improve healthcare, they're all focused on attacking and shutting down the new kid on the block. Is that any way to help lower the cost of healthcare?
This entry was tagged. Regulation