Ups and Downs in Storefront Clinics
Telemedicine is still looking for its economic footing. CVS Caremark is temporarily closing ninety of its 550 MinuteClinics now that the flu season has passed. Saving money in hard economic times, however, may be more important than seasonal variation in customer traffic. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is building on the thirty storefront clinics it has established since 2006 and going into the electronic health record business. This spring, Sam’s Clubs will be offering physicians a bundle of EHR products, including a Dell computer, EClinicalWorks software, installation, and continuing maintenance for around $25k and no more than $6.5k annual fee. Federal economic stimulus funding for adopting electronic records is more than $40k/physician. SEE