Cost and Quality of Care at Retail Clinics

Professional organizations have raised concerns about the quality of care that is delivered at store-based retail clinics that are open evenings and weekends, have short waiting times, require no appointments, and offer care for minor acute ailments. Using claims data from a Minnesota health insurer, investigators searched for episodes of initial care for pharyngitis, otitis media, and urinary tract infections; they identified 2100 episodes that occurred in retail clinics and matched them with 13,070 episodes that occurred in urgent care centers, physician offices, or emergency departments (EDs). In addition to location and ailment, cases were matched by age, sex, comorbidities, and income.

Aggregate quality scores (proportion that met indic…