I feel compelled to write about my latest healthcare experience.  Let me start by saying that the industry group at Microsoft including myself has presented the 5 trends in healthcare many times.  Kudos to Dr. Crounse for the deck in the first place.  One of the five trends is Retailization of Healthcare or the emergence of the non-physician based clinics inside Target, Wal-Mart, and CVS stores.  To be honest, I had not experienced one of these clinics up until yesterday.  I rarely get sick and will typically try and power through a cold or flu when needed.

The following scenario will hit close to home for those of you who have children.  I have 2 young boys.  My oldest boy, Zach, attends pre-pre school.  Not sure what that really means except we now have schools for kids as young as 2.  Imagine that.  Zach’s first day of school was last week and with that came his first elevated fever, sore throat, and ear ache since spring.  Children need extra love when they don’t feel well so I ultimately had the same symptoms three days later.  I couldn’t afford to let whatever it is I had to develop and knock me out for a couple weeks so I called my physician. 

My expectations were low when I made the call.  I expected to be placed on hold and not get an appointment for a couple days.  To be expected, I was on hold for 15 minutes.  I was surfing the net while on hold and decided to check out where the closest Minute Clinic was located.  To my delight, the Minute Clinic inside CVS is located a mile and half from my home.  The website listed all of the services offered and the pricing associated with each.  I hung up the phone and decided to give it a try.  The local time was 4:10PM.

I arrived at the CVS around 4:15PM.  The Minute Clinic is well branded and I immediately followed the signs inside the store.  The starting point was a self service kiosk.  I entered all of my information and also asked me if I wanted access to information relative to today’s visit via the internet.  I supplied my email address and checked off the permission pieces.  What a novel idea – give patients access to their medical information!  The kiosk said I was first in line and directed me to have a seat around the corner.

Dixie, a certified nurse practitioner, called my name and escorted me into the examination room.  She had plenty of questions for me as she took my vitals and recorded them into the computer.  I felt that she was genuinely interested in my well being and figuring out what was causing my symptoms.  After gathering all of the information she was comfortable with diagnosing and recommending OTC treatment and an antibiotic to treat a bacterial infection.  She handed me the script and I was off to the pharmacy.

Two minutes later I had my prescription in hand.  My visit and prescription were billed directly to my insurance company at a cost much less than a physician office visit.  $59 was the charge.  When is the last time you knew what the physician charges were prior to receiving a bill?  I wonder how much this could save a company the size of Microsoft?  100,000 employees and their dependants saving $50 per normal office visit?  The menu pricing is the same for EVERYBODY.  Insurance or no insurance.  Pretty simple idea don’t you think?

I asked Dixie about referring patients to different levels of care.  She said that Minute Clinic did refer patients that were out of scope for treatment at the store.  The percentages were very small which leads me to believe that these clinics offer a great service for a high percentage of folks.

I arrived home at 5:00pm.  50 minutes is all the time it took from the time I decided to go to CVS Minute Clinic to the time I arrived home with diagnosis and prescription in hand.  I may have spent that much time on hold just waiting for someone to answer the phone at my physician’s office.  When I jumped on my computer, there were 2 emails waiting for me.  The first was access to my medical information from that day’s visit with the ability to export it to a PHR.  The second was a survey asking me about my experience.  Can you say consumer friendly? 

We all know that healthcare is behind when it comes to customer satisfaction and automation of information.  The power to change healthcare resides with the consumer.  By choosing the best overall experience when seeking treatment, consumers will force caregivers to compete or perish without a patient base.  The next few years we will see tremendous change in the healthcare industry.  I believe the lion’s share of that change will occur as a result of consumer behavior.  Be smart and savvy consumers of healthcare everyone!  We all stand to benefit.