Another bad idea from Walgreen's

[Gabby Hayes]

There's not enough space to list the trouble the local Walgreen's pharmacies have gotten into the past decade. And that's just the stuff I personally know about. Now Walgreen's wants to play doctor more than it does already. Stay tuned for the body count to begin.

www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/04/06/as-walgreen-plays-doctor-family-physicians-bristle/

(Dear Moderator: Due to possible copyright issues with Forbes I only pasted the link.)

[Recursion]

1. Sounds good to me

I'm missing the downside here, other than that some doctors' oxen are getting gored.

[Fridays Child]

2. Same here.

Last edited Wed Apr 10, 2013, 03:12 AM - Edit history (1)

Nurse Practitioners at drug store clinics are just as able to form good provider-patient relationships, and such clinics are usually operated on a walk-in basis. This may work better for people who have job hours that conflict with traditional doctor office hours. And I think more and more health plans are accepting store clinics as in-network.

Plus, I'm not inclined to take seriously doctors complaints about fragmented care, particularly when they charge late arrival penalties to patients who are a few minutes late but will leave on-time patients sitting in the waiting room or exam room for an hour or longer. There is a fundamental lack of respect for patients by doctors who behave as if their time is valuable but their patients' is not.

[n2doc]

3. Not to mention docs who outsource most of their care to nurses in their own offices

Most visits, I see the doc about 1/4 of the total face time, and a nurse the other 3/4. Not including the inevitable 30 minute wait, of course.

[Nye Bevan]

4. In my experience nurse practitioners are perfectly capable at this kind of thing.

Sounds like the doctors just don't want the competition.

[baldguy]

5. Historically, in the health care debate the AMA has been on the wrong side.