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.
Varela’s visit illustrates the appeal of retail clinics. For patients with minor ailments, or those needing a screening or a shot, they can be fast, convenient and affordable.
As the sign outside the Tidewater Trail clinic says, “You’re sick. We’re quick.”
Retail clinics also boast of evening and weekend hours, don’t require an appointment and participate in some insurance plans.
However, the American Academy of Family Physicians, among other groups, worries about the quality of the care.
The academy has urged retail clinics to stick to a limited scope of services and to refer patients with more complicated conditions to a “ready network of primary care physicians.”
“Retail health clinics will never take the place, and should never take the place, of the patient-centered medical home,” said Dr. James King, chairman of the academy’s board of directors, in a statement.
A September study of retail clinics by the Rand Corporation found that patients seem to understand when to use them.
The study found that 90 percent of visits to retail clinics were for 10 simple conditions, such as bronchitis and sinusitis.
Sixty percent of clinic patients did not have a primary care physician.
“For these patients, there is no relationship to disrupt,” the study said.
At the Tidewater Trail office, patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, are referred to their primary care doctors, said Anne Bassuk, manager of operations.
If a patient does not have a primary care doctor, he or she receives a list of local primary care doctors who are said to be taking new patients.
Tammy Famoso already had a primary care doctor when she arrived at the clinic Monday, complaining of a sore throat and headache.
“I hadn’t felt that well over the weekend. This morning I felt really rotten,” said the Stafford resident.
Famoso said she chose a retail clinic because she didn’t want to drive to her doctor’s office in Woodbridge, and because she feared she would have to wait if she went to an urgent-care clinic.
“I thought this was a great idea, especially for routine things,” she said.
MinuteClinic did not take her insurance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but that didn’t bother her.
“This is too convenient to worry about that,” she said.
Jim Hall: 540/374-5433 jhall@freelancestar.com