Aurora QuickCare Clinics moving to Walgreens

Aurora Health Care will move its QuickCare clinics to Walgreens stores this spring, replacing the drugstore chain’s five clinics in the Milwaukee area and opening three clinics in Walgreens stores in Oshkosh and the Green Bay area.

The health system is closing its eight existing QuickCare clinics, including six in Walmart Superstores, in eastern Wisconsin as part of the move.

Walgreens, now part of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., has struck similar agreements with health systems throughout the country, including Advocate Health Care in the Chicago area, SSM Health in the St. Louis area and Providence Health & Services in the Portland and Seattle areas.

The drugstore chain will continue to operate its Milwaukee clinics until they are taken over by Aurora.

The move will mark another shift for the QuickCare clinics.

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Aurora closed nine of its 19 clinics in 2009 after several years of rapid expansion. And it closed its clinics at Southridge Mall and Brookfield Square late last year.

Its remaining QuickCare clinics are in Walmart Superstores in Pewaukee, Mukwonago, Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Green Bay and De Pere, as well as in an Aurora Pharmacy in Mequon and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Kenosha.

Aurora hopes that the Walgreens clinics will draw more patients by being part of the state’s largest health system.

The clinics, staffed by nurse practitioners, will be tied into Aurora’s Epic system for electronic health records and have access to Aurora patients’ medical records as well as those of other health systems that use Epic Systems’ software.

“This will be fully a functional Aurora clinic,” said Jeff Bahr, president-elect of Aurora Health Care Medical Group.

Aurora hopes to find positions within its health system for the staff of the existing Walgreens clinics and the QuickCare clinics that will be closed.

The number of so-called retail clinics, which typically are staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants, soared after the model was introduced around 2000, increasing to about 900 by 2006.

There now is an estimated 2,000 retail clinics in the United States, accounting for an estimated 2% of primary care visits.

The clinics typically are located in pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens drugstores, in supermarkets and in “big-box stores,” such as Walmart and Target.

Retail clinics are a low-margin business —– they typically see 10 to 30 patients a day — and many of them have proven unprofitable.

But the clinics offer patients convenient access to basic care, such as diagnosis and treatment for ear aches, urinary tract infections, sinus infections, strep tests, pregnancy tests, sports physicals and vaccines.

Although most parents work, many doctors’ offices are open only on weekdays and during business hours — though more clinics have begun offering extended hours in recent years and health systems now often have urgent care clinics.

The convenient hours and being able to get care without an appointment were cited by more than half of U.S. families as reasons they went to a retail clinic in a 2010 survey.

Aurora’s clinics in the Walgreens stores will operate seven days a week, including evenings.

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The clinics also appeal to people who are uninsured or who don’t have a personal physician.

Prices are fixed and typically posted.

Aurora’s QuickCare Clinics, for example, charge $70 a visit for an exam, diagnosis and basic lab tests. Prices for vaccines vary.

“It is a very affordable way to diagnose a lot of common health concerns,” Bahr said.

The clinics accept insurance, he said, but most patients pay the cost out-of-pocket.

One indication of the clinics' appeal: Almost one in five adults now receive a vaccination in a pharmacy or retail clinic, Deborah Bachrach and Jonah Frohlich, consultants with Manett Health, wrote in a blog for the website of Health Affairs, a policy journal.

For health systems, the retail clinics can be a source of referrals.

In April, Meijer announced that it was partnering with Froedtert Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin to open clinics in its stores in Waukesha and Sussex.

Froedtert Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin’s FastCare clinics are based on a model developed by Bellin Health and effectively licensed to other health systems.

Aspirus, ThedaCare and Monroe Clinic also license the model.

In all, 26 health systems in 11 states operate 46 FastCare clinics, said Dana Bzdawka, a spokesman for Bellin Health. This is in addition to the five operated by Bellin Health,

Retail clinics aligned with health systems have an easier time coordinating care with a patient's primary-care doctor, and the partnerships are becoming increasingly more common.

Walgreen Co., based in Deerfield, Ill., bought Take Care Health Systems, which operated retail clinics, in 2007. The drugstore chain now has about 400 in-store clinics, some operated by the company and others by health systems.

The company that is now CVS Health Corp. bought MinuteClinic in 2006 and operated 1,136 retail clinics, including 1,129 in CVS Pharmacy and Target stores, as of Sept. 30.