Former HCFO Grantee Quoted in Washington Post on Questions to Ask about Retail Clinics

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A recent Washington Post article described the benefits and potential pitfalls of the proliferation of retail clinics, which provide greater access to care but may challenge care continuity with a regular doctor. While retail clinics offer a limited set of services to address common illnesses, former HCFO grantee Ateev Mehrotra, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School and RAND Corp., noted that quality at retail and urgent clinics is comparable to the quality of care delivered at doctor’s offices for these services. In his HCFO-funded study, Mehrotra and colleagues examined the impact of retail health clinics on health care utilization and costs and found that patients who visit a retail clinic are subsequently less likely to seek care from a primary care physician, which has implications for long-term care continuity.