My oldest son called me this morning with a bad sore throat and an earache. He'd been suffering through the pain for a cou0ple of days, trying to get through it, but it just kept getting worse until he had to call me.
I drove up to get him in Johnson City, and set off to find a walk-in Urgent Care clinic. I didn't want to go to an Emergency Room because, well, it wasn't an emergency, but I had called my family doctor, and they couldn't get him in until Friday, so I was looking for another option.
You won't believe what I found.
A buddy at work told me that he had heard about a clinic that had opened up inside a grocery store.
Yep, you read that right, a grocery store.
I checked it out, and sure enough, tucked inside the Food City on South Roan St. was a small medical clinic run by a Physician's Assistant and a Nurse Practitioner. For those not familiar with those terms, these are qualified medical personnel who are trained and certified to treat patients, including writing prescriptions for antibiotics or other meds. They are a wonderful mix of nurse and doctor, blending the strength of both positions.
Anyway, the clinic is on a walk in basis and that's exactly what we did. I filled out about 5 minutes worth of paperwork, and my son was seen immediately. 25 minutes later, we left the store with a filled prescription. Try that at an emergency room or any other urgent care facility.
here's the kicker. They don't file insurance which cuts way down on their paperwork, thus eliminating a ton of overhead. As a result, an office visit costs $30.00
Period.
Talk about a win/win solution! Food City leases the space out at a very reduced rate, providing a needed service which is sure to bring more customers in; the Clinic gets a low lease, which further reduces overhead, allowing the practitioners to make a good wage, while costs to the patient are kept very low. And you can pick up a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and 2 porterhouse steaks (on sale this week for $3.99 lb) without making another stop.
Let's see a government run health plan that can do that!
Posted by Rich at September 17, 2003 1:57 PM | TrackBackWow.. that clinic in the grocery store is awesome! And for $30 you can't beat that! Nice! Someone send that idea over to Iowa!
Posted by: Velvetsteel on September 17, 2003 8:37 PMGreat idea. Expect to see it in Wal-Mart Supercenters any day now. My only quibble would be having all those sick people coming in to a place that sells food. Wonder if it has affected their business?
BTW, there is a great walk-in clinic here in Maryville. I've been to it once. Apparently, a lot of people around here use them as their primary care physicians, so they do accept insurance, and they are a little more expensive than $30. But they are a lot less expensive than an ER visit, or even a doctor's visit for some things.
Posted by: SK Bubba on September 18, 2003 9:36 AMWe had a clinic similar to what you describe when I lived in Va. Beach. The best part was they had a small pharmacy as part of the clinic, and everything was computerized. The doc entered the scrip into a terminal in the exam room, and the pharmacy started filling it immediately. Plus, you only had to fill out one set of insurance paperwork. Sweet set up.
Incidently, I did ask the pharmacist how people felt out potentially sick people in the grocery store. His response made a lot of sense.
"Where do you think sick people come to fill their prescriptions after they've been to a conventional doctor's office? Or to get their Kleenex, Tylenol, or what ever?"
He's right. They're going to be in the Super WalMart pharmacy anyway, so there really is no difference.
Posted by: rich on September 18, 2003 10:28 AMHow can they run a clinic in a grocery store when there's a higher-than-normal risk someone might come in with an infectious disease, get treated and medicated, then possibly go do some grocery shopping?
I know that could happen anywhere, but having a clinic actually in the same area with open food sounds a bit, ahem, dicey...
Otherwise it's a great idea...
Posted by: Barry on September 23, 2003 2:44 PM