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Quick fix for the sick

Retail medicine comes to the region with the opening of a MinuteClinic in Spotsylvania.

Date published: 12/4/2008

Vickie Varela was sick for more than a week with a cough, congestion and sinus drainage. She tried over-the-counter remedies but nothing helped.

So on Monday, the Stafford County resident did what a growing number of people across the nation do when they need medical care. She went to a local drug store and saw a nurse practitioner.

“I have a Christmas party coming up Sunday and I got desperate. I wasn’t getting any better,” she said.

Varela visited the MinuteClinic tucked inside the CVS pharmacy on Tidewater Trail in Spotsylvania County. It is the region’s newest retail health clinic, one of about 1,000 such clinics nationwide.

With names like SmartCare and RediClinic, retail clinics are sprouting inside grocery stores, drug stores and discount department stores.

Pratt Medical Center opened one inside Ukrop’s Super Market in Spotsylvania earlier this year.

MinuteClinic, a subsidiary of CVS Caremark, is the industry leader. Founded eight years ago in Minnesota, it has 559 clinics nationwide and 27 in Virginia.

This spring MinuteClinic said it planned to open three outlets in the Fredericksburg area. The company posted signs and renovated the interiors of two other CVS stores in Stafford County. Since then it has scaled back its plans. A spokesman said this week that the clinic on Tidewater Trail, which opened Oct. 1, will be the only one for now.

Varela’s visit there began when she self-registered at a computer kiosk in the back of the store. A menu screen listed the services offered and the prices. Treatment of a sinus infection was $59, the screen said.

She waited a few minutes, then met Carol Campbell, the nurse practitioner and sole clinic employee on duty.

Campbell examined her in one of two patient rooms and diagnosed a case of sinusitis. She gave her prescriptions for an antibiotic and a cough remedy. Varela filled the prescriptions at the pharmacy a few feet away.

The clinic billed her health insurance plan, Tricare Standard. Total time there: about 30 minutes.

“It couldn’t be more convenient,” Varela said.

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Date published: 12/4/2008