Many large employers, including retailers, are increasingly looking to third-party companies to offer worksite clinics. These clinics also are staffed by highly trained individuals such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners and treat common, everyday illnesses and ailments.
· Worksite clinics can assist with disease management (i.e., allergy shots) and provide an on-site resource for questions that wellness program participants may have.
As the retail clinic business grows and more people seek the convenience of high quality, inexpensive care offered by these clinics, family practitioners and other medical doctors – who are already in short supply, particularly in rural areas—are free to focus their time on more complicated cases.
Policy considerations
If a public health plan is crafted, retailers urge Congress to allow patients to visit clinics to treat basic conditions. Lowering or waiving co-pays will further encourage individuals to seek basic medical services from clinics instead of emergency rooms.
RILA supports:
· Laws allowing general business corporations to provide medical services to streamline the operations of health clinics. We believe that it is the quality of the practitioner that matters, not who owns the store.
· Expanding the scope of services and prescribing authority of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
· The efforts of some insurers that have lowered, and even waived entirely, co-payments for insured individuals who seek care from a retail clinic instead of a doctor’s office. We will oppose medical association efforts to prohibit such insurance savings incentives.