HCFO Grantee Quoted in Article on Retail Clinics

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Bronson Healthcare Group is adding to the growing prevalence of retail health clinics by opening its second FastCare clinic in Michigan. As Mark Sanchez of MiBiz reports, retail clinics offer patients convenient, lower-cost options to treat minor conditions, but they may drive up health care utilization and overall spending. He discusses HCFO-funded research from Ateev Mehrotra, Harvard Medical School, that found that 58% of retail clinic visits were for new uses of medical services rather than substitutions for higher-cost visits to a physician’s office or the emergency department. Mehrotra notes that, “Retail clinics do offer benefits such as easier access to medical care, but the widely expected cost savings may not be realized.” In his HCFO-funded study, Mehrotra and colleagues examined the impact of retail health clinics on health care utilization and costs.