Minute Clinics in the news again

A tip of the hat to Ben Kruskal at Dr. Ben’s Blog for pointing to Mass Medical Society president-elect Bruce Auerbach’s Boston Globe op-ed piece on Minute Clinics and DPH’s response (and to earlier posts of Paul Levy’s, at Running a Hospital, and of mine, here at HealthBlawg, on the subject).

Bruce lays out a healthy skepticism about the retail clinic model; while I know him personally and would not presume that this is his motivation, the very fact of his writing will prompt some readers to dismiss his thinking as that of a turf-protecting doc.  He lays out some of the arguments against permitting the proliferation of retail clinics, or, to put it another way, in favor of regulating retail clinics’ operations, as one specialty society has proposed.

The challenge to parties on all sides of this debate is to stay on-topic and focus on the issues at hand rather than real or presumed interests of the parties.

Check out the DPH press release with links to the proposed "limited service" clinic regs.  Comments will be accepted through September 28.

— David Harlow