Doctor-staffed retail clinics to open

MedStar Health and Rite Aid Corp. are joining a small but growing movement to place more physicians in stores.

The health care organization and drugstore chain in April announced an agreement to open four physician-operated retail-based health clinics in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas this summer. The walk-in clinics, to be called MedStar PromptCare, will be housed inside Rite Aid drugstores, staffed by MedStar-affiliated physicians and managed by Consumer Health Services Inc., a third partner in the agreement.

The clinics will be "a step above a nurse practitioner-run clinic and right below an urgent care clinic," said Erika Murray, spokeswoman for MedStar Health, a network of eight hospitals and other health care services.

While clinics staffed by nurse practitioners are limited to treating colds and other minor ailments, MedStar physicians will also treat minor injuries, such as sprains and minor laceration repair, said Sean O'Donnell, a spokesman for New York-based CHS.

MedStar Health said it will ensure access to follow-up medical services for the clinics. It said the clinics' physicians will be credentialed by and have admitting privileges to MedStar hospitals.

Murray said this is MedStar Health's first initiative in the retail clinic business. She said the clinics should strengthen the health care organization's ties with its physicians.

While still small in number compared to those staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants, physician-staffed clinics are catching on, according to the Convenient Care Assn., the industry trade group.

CCA is getting more calls from physician practices wanting to open retail-based clinics, both as a means to expand their practice and to provide after-hours care, spokeswoman Tine Hansen-Turton said.

Altogether, there are about 975 retail clinics, with that number expected to grow to about 1,500 by the end of the year, according to the CCA.