Drugstore clinics provide care in a hurry

Convenience. No insurance. Impatient patients.

All have driven the fast-food equivalent of drop-in drugstore health clinics that treat minor ailments from strep throat to pinkeye.

The walk-in clinics began in Arizona about two years ago with Chandler-based Bashas' family of stores, which includes Bashas', AJ's Fine Foods and Food City. The grocer has four MediMin Clinics throughout the Valley, although none in the Southeast Valley.

But CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens have walk-in clinics throughout the Southeast Valley based on the same concept. CVS, which opened its first MinuteClinic in Minneapolis in 2000, operates 14 clinics in the Valley. Walgreens runs 13 Take Care Clinics in the Phoenix area, including Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler and Apache Junction.

The clinics are staffed with nurse practitioners and are designed to treat minor illnesses and injuries. Anything more serious and patients are referred to hospital emergency rooms or urgent-care clinics.

The in-store health clinics are popular with Holly Waters, a Mesa mother of seven who works in payroll and human resources.

She brought her 8-year-old son, Hunter, to a CVS MinuteClinic near her northeast Mesa home when it opened on a recent Monday. Hunter had been complaining of a sore throat, headache and congestion.

Nurse practitioners Donisha Pardue and Alene Frycek swabbed the back of Hunter's throat with a giant Q-tip to test him for strep throat. The rapid test came out negative but the nurse practitioners diagnosed another problem: Hunter had a sinus infection.

They prescribed an antibiotic. Forty-five minutes after arriving at the clinic Waters and her son were back home.

"I actually have insurance but I use the MinuteClinic because it's quick, they're friendly and it's very close to my house," Holly Waters said. "When I go to my pediatrician we're waiting for 45 minutes to an hour. First you get the nurse, then the doctor. The whole thing takes an hour and a half to two hours, plus the gas I use getting there."

Waters said she has used the clinic about 10 times since it opened two years ago. She makes a $15 co-pay for each visit because it accepts her insurance.

The average cost of a visit ranges from $59 to $80 for patients who don't have insurance.

Rosita Torres of Queen Creek said she uses the walk-in clinic for the same reasons as Waters does.

"I haven't been to a doctor in awhile so to try to get in as a new patient on the same day is hard," Torres said.

She, too, believed she had strep throat, so she went to a MinuteClinic in Mesa on a recent Monday.

"When I found out that my insurance covered the doctors at the MinuteClinic, I was excited. Last time I tried, I was on a different insurance plan and it wasn't covered, so that was a bummer," Torres said.

The clinics aren't popular with some physicians, who worry that patients are being misdiagnosed and potentially spreading viruses.

"I really don't think it's a good idea to mix sick people with healthy ones," said Dr. Doug Campos-Outcalt, associate chair for family and community medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

"Sick people mingling with people shopping for groceries just isn't a good idea," he said. "Why would you put these things in a grocery store? This doesn't make sense from a public-health point of view."

But Mila Garcia, regional manager for MinuteClinics, said sick patients already mix with the general public when they're ill.

"This is really no different," she said.

Garcia said the clinics, which are open seven days a week, take a load off of emergency rooms.

Flu shots and other vaccinations, including hepatitis A and B, are available at the clinics.

That's what prompted Madeline Leckey of Mesa to visit a MinuteClinic recently.

"I don't have insurance so if I went to a doctor she'd charge me for the visit plus the flu shot," Leckey said.

Instead, Leckey paid $30 for the shot and then shopped for an alarm clock in the CVS store.

"What I like about these places is that they're open and available to walk-ins and you don't have to make an appointment," she said. "And the fact that they can (write) prescriptions that you can fill right there (is convenient)."

Donisha Pardue, left, wipes the arm of Sandra Jay of Mesa after giving her a flu shot at the Minute Clinic in the CVS at 6015 E. Brown Road in Mesa.