Consumers visit retail clinics for convenience

Long before payers, large insurers and health systems got on board, consumers were already voting for retail clinics “with their feet,” as patient visits steadily climbed over the years. According to research conducted by Rand Corp., retail clinic traffic doubled each year between 2007 and 2009, to 6 million patient visits a year. Since then, the number has risen to more than 10.5 million in 2014 and rising, according to various estimates.

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And there is a good reason for that. Patients by and large genuinely liked the experience. As early as 2008, customer satisfaction rates were extremely high right out of the gates, with consumers reporting a high rate of satisfaction with both the convenience (93%) and quality of care (90%) they received in retail clinics, according to a Wall Street Journal online/Harris Interactive poll conducted that year. Industry leader MinuteClinic, which counts more than 25 million patient visits since its first retail clinic location opened in 2000, reports customer satisfaction ratings of 95%.



Initially, “sick visits” (cold, flu, etc.) and vaccinations drove the bulk of these visits, but according to new research, as clinics have been able to expand their scope of services, the reasons patients use clinics also has expanded. According to recent data from Kalorama, while vaccinations (74%) and cold-flu (55%) were still the dominant drivers of patient visits, nearly one-third of consumers (32%) said they actually visited a retail clinic for a prescription renewal.