You are wrong about customers not buying anything, they are the only ones who buy from us and now that we’ve killed EMR to sell MyWay that will dry up as well.

Additionally, we have been keeping up with what our payers are seeing from CDHP. This was anticipated by many retailers to provide a major source of patients. It is, but the uptake is slower.

Our experience with Wal-mart is that we have seen some differences by region. We did not proceed to final discussions. We only talked to others working with them. Their deals also seem to be one-sided according to those that we consulted.

There are a significant number of articles out there. For good info on CDHP upticks and discussions with the researchers, look-up the recently released Milliman and contact the Center for Studying Health System Change.

The blog post is a summary of my findings from reading, talks with those in various segments of the industry, talks with researchers, direct discussions with the retailers, one “free” discussion with two different consultants who develop retail medicine locations of all types and my interpretation of the data.

1) Confidential/proprietary information from a retail clinic operator. Not to sound mysterious or anything, but I had to sign a NDA to get it. This particular operation has already closed some locations.

2) There have been a few articles published in The XXX Business Journal regarding various operators’ expectations vs. actual volume. (For those who aren’t familiar, there are a chain of local business newspapers that sometimes share articles.) I can send some links, but they require an account/login.

I have no direct financial interest in retail clinics, either as an investor or as someone whose livelihood would be threatened by their success. However, I simply cannot see the raging, pent-up demand for the services offered (i.e. looks like a bubble), especially if plans exist for more. If such facilities evolve, like with the PetSmart/Banfield Pet Hospital analogy, then that could be a true innovation. We’ll see.

Of note: the Urgent Care model, with physician staffing, x-rays, suturing, expanded treatment, etc. is doing quite well. (Again, I’m not an investor or a competitor.) The difference is the range of services offered.

Art Vandelay and Not surprised I’m curious where you are getting numbers regarding the success, types of patients being seen, etc. Please let us know or was it just your opinion?

Wal-Mart does work with local health systems, Redi-clinic has had a relationship with Memorial-Hermann in Houston, health systems are setting up their own convenient care clinics. (if you’d like the articles, they can be cut and pasted)

Thank you Winston – U.S. Health Care* is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is patient interoperability.

*Health Care is an oxymoronic service. There is nothing healthy about going into a hospital in the United States in 2008. (Warning PDF: http://t1d.www03.cacheibm.com/industries/healthcare/doc/content/bin/Patient_Centric_wp.pdf )
We use to call it medical care that doctors provided to the SICK in a building called hospital – and we liked it that way.