Storefront Clinics in a Slump
August 4, 2009 | Terry Sharrer
If storefront clinics were aimed at lower-cost, easier access healthcare, why are they not growing by leaps and bounds during the current recession? Analysts aren’t sure, but the projection in 2007 of 2,500 retail clinics operating in the US by 2010 appears to be falling quite short. There are about 1,100 of them today. CVS has closed a hundred of its 452 MinuteClinics; Wal-Mart is down from 80 to 30. Perhaps the retailers relied too heavily on co-financing they expected from their traditional hospital partners. MORE