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News
Take Care Expands Services
April 5, 2013

Walgreens announced this month diagnosis and treatment of chronic illnesses at Take Care Health clinics.

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AFC Buys Doctors Express
April 5, 2013
The acquisition by AFC will make that company the fourth largest urgent care operator in the country, the second largest independent operator.

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MinuteClinic Opens 19 Clinics in November
December 1, 2012
The company also signed two new health system affiliation agreements.
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MinuteClinic Opens In Asheville, NC
October 24, 2012
The move marks a willingness by the top retail clinic operator to open in a market that is not one of the top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States.
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Walk-In Medicine and Telehealth Continue to Converge
October 18, 2012
BCBS of N.C., TakeCare and American Well collaborate on new service.
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MinuteClinic Signs 18th Collaboration Agreement
September 17, 2012
Agreement with University of Oklahoma Physicians covers Oklahoma City clinics.
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More Moves By Major Urgent Care Players
August 1, 2012
Solantic/CareSpot forms a joint venture with HCA; Physicians Immediate Care gets a major investment.
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Telemedicine to be Offered Inside Walmart
June 6, 2012
Another attempt at something Walmart tried back in 2008.
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Target Clinic Expands Into NC and VA
May 15, 2012
These are the first new markets since 2010.
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Safeway Begins Building Clinics in its Stores
August 1, 2011

Traditional grocery gets a boost as a platform for retail clinics. 

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Insight
Virtual and Walk-In Converge
May 1, 2013
Telehealth Takes Aim At The Mass Market

The telemedicine industry is 20 years old.  So why are we hearing so much about telemedicine today if the industry has been around for so long?


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The Gold Mine Within
April 1, 2013
The Evolution of Customer Service in Immediate Care Medicine

Delight, enchantment, service excellence. That’s what companies like American Express, Target and Apple call it. The big question is whether any of that customer service sophistication is showing up in the walk-in medicine industry.

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Worksite Clinics On And Off Campus
March 1, 2013
More Complex Care Models and Payment Schemes

There is new-found energy in the worksite clinic business. Everyone wants in, from the largest health systems to the smallest insurance broker.

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The Push For 2020 Starts Now
February 1, 2013
2013 Forecast Issue

As we look ahead to 2013, all indications are that the urgent care market will continue to gain steam, while retail clinics will see only modest growth.

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Urgent Care Is Still Hot
January 1, 2013
2012 Year In Review
Retail clinics may still get a lot of attention in the press, but urgent care continued to be where the action was during the past 12 months.
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Filling The Primary Care Void
December 1, 2012
New Services Are Changing The DNA Of Walk-In Medicine
TB Testing. Camp and Sports Physicals. Chronic disease management. Weight loss. Smoking cessation. And full primary care services.The reasons are up for debate, but the facts are clear: new services are showing up at local urgent care and retail clinics that weren’t there five years ago.
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Health Insurance Buys Into Urgent Care
November 1, 2012
What's Behind Recent Acquisitions And Investments
If the last two years are any indication, large health insurance companies appear to have an appetite for acquiring or investing in urgent care networks. The rationale for these investments appears simple enough: provide more patient convenience and reduced emergency room costs. But is there more to it than that?
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A Measure of Survival
October 1, 2012
Walk-In Medicine's State of Quality
With the formation of ACOs and clinically integrated networks, one inevitable reality for operators of retail and urgent care clinics is that to participate, they will have to raise the bar on quality. “For many in the walk-in medicine world, this is a new expectation,” says Michael Millenson, president of Health Quality Advisors. “If you are a standalone urgent care center and you have low Yelp scores, your risk is reputational; but if you look to join a clinically integrated network that is at risk for lower Medicare payments because of your reputational risk, they won’t want you in that network."
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Walk-In Patients Are Now Strategic
September 1, 2012
Annual ConvUrgentCare Strategy Symposium Issue
Six years ago retail clinics seemed to be popping up on every street corner. It was a stressful time for family physicians and urgent care operators because the competitive world seemed to be changing overnight. But since that time the three primary varieties of walk-in medicine, namely retail, urgent care and primary care clinics, all seem to be uniquely positioned to take advantage of changes in the U.S. healthcare economy. Why? Because the walk-in patient has become strategic.
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Another Fork In The Road For Walmart
August 1, 2012
What's Next For The Big Retailer In Traditional Healthcare Delivery?
Walmart is famous for low prices. The U.S. healthcare system is famous for out-of-control costs. In 2005 Walmart decided to link the two concepts by opening medical clinics in its stores. And since then hundreds of articles, speeches and slide presentations have speculated on what will become of the marriage between Walmart and the U.S. healthcare system.  But Walmart’s medical clinic strategy is at a major crossroads.
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Is Growth Stalled Or About To Explode?
July 4, 2012
2012 Mid-Year Retail Clinic Review
Those looking for signs of major expansion in the retail clinic market during the first six months of 2012 will find mostly disappointing news.  But it may be temporary.
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The New Face of Urgent Care
June 6, 2012
High-End Locations and Stunning Building Design Reflect an Evolving Industry
New players with big money are joining the urgent care industry, building modern facilities in high-rent retail locations. Some industry observers believe this could be the beginning of a dominant national brand in urgent care, which makes a lot of small, independent operators nervous. Others believe this is just another cycle of inexperienced investors about to fail.
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Retail Clinics Finding More Favor Among PAs and NPs
May 5, 2012
Survey Shows Significant Increase In Positive Attitudes
To most who are involved in the retail clinic industry, the match of a nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA) and a retail clinic seems a perfect fit. But to the early providers who started practicing in that setting and their peers who did not, the fit was hardly perfect.
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Is It Too Early To Think About ACOs?
April 5, 2012
What urgent care operators should do today
The general impression is that ACOs are part of healthcare reform; they involve a small number of hospitals in some kind of Medicare pilot project; and they might be struck down by the Supreme Court. But ACOs are appearing in different forms, and many will happen no matter what.
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A Retail Clinic Marathon
March 1, 2012
Profile on RediClinic CEO Web Golinkin
Throughout the course of retail clinic history, many leaders have come and gone. But only one, Web Golinkin, is still fully engaged in the company he has run since 2001.  His story is an adventure if for no other reason than that he and RediClinic managed to survive some rather dramatic ups and downs with high-profile investors and retailers.
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2012 Market Forecast
February 2, 2012
Cautious Optimism Continues for Walk-In Medicine
Virtually all of the emerging patterns point to a good year for walk-in medicine. We expect a minimum of 10 percent growth this year in the number of retail clinics, and equal growth in the urgent care sector. We anticipate an even greater increase in the number of worksite clinics opening, which will be accompanied by the entrance of new players, some of them backed by private equity.
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2011 Year in Review
January 6, 2012
Walk-In Medicine's Second Spring
If you had to choose one word to describe the past year in walk-in medicine, it might be “spring.”  In this 2011 Year in Review, we not only tell the numbers story, but we look at the top-10 events or trends we believe defined the walk-in medicine industry.
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Why Retail Clinics Matter
December 5, 2011
Get Ready for a New Round of Growth

If you have been in the camp that thinks retail clinics won’t last, it’s time to take another look at the landscape. We believe the retail clinic concept is about to enter a period of strong growth, driven by the model’s underlying efficiency at a time when services will seek the most logical care venue based on acuity. In this feature article, we discuss our “Top Five” reasons for optimism in the retail clinic channel.

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Urgent Care Becomes Strategic to Hospitals
October 6, 2011
Integration with Primary Care is Key

It seems like a natural fit to have a hospital system operating a network of urgent care centers, especially at a time when population management and accountable care organizations seem to be ruling strategic plans going forward.  Yet with all of this momentum around population management, integration with primary care and efforts to reduce emergency room visits, the number of hospitals operating urgent care centers is surprisingly low.  In this article we look at some hospital systems have have had great success with their urgent care initiatives.

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DocuTAP
Click here to view Retail clinic information
Urgent Care Clinics in the United States
Total Urgent Care Clinics:  4,024
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