58% Of Retail Clinic Visits For Low-Acuity Conditions Represent New Utilization

About 58% of retail clinic visits for low-acuity conditions represented new utilization, and 42% of visits replaced a physician office visit or an emergency department visit. Of the substitution visits, 6.9% replaced an emergency department visit and 93.1% replaced a physician office visit. The additional clinic use was associated with increased costs of $14 per person per year.

These findings were reported in “Retail Clinic Visits For Low-Acuity Conditions Increase Utilization And Spending” by J. Scott Ashwood, Martin Gaynor, Claude M. Setodji, Rachel O. Reid, Ellerie Weber, and Ateev Mehrotra. The researchers sought to determine if . . .