Friday, September 01, 2006

Hy-Vee Health Care

Hy-Vee Health Care

Stocking up on cat food and other assorted essentials last night, I noticed a new feature next to the pharmacy: an in-store clinic.

Curaquick, based in Sioux City, employs nurse practitioners and physician's assistants to work the clinics, which treat people for minor ailments on a walk-in basis for a flat fee.


Convenient, certainly. Kind of the Check-N-Go of health care. And maybe I'm getting the intent wrong but something struck me odd...

The clinics do not accept insurance but can provide patients with a detailed receipt to send to their insurance companies after the visit.


Assuming you have insurance. And why would someone with insurance go to a flat fee clinic in a grocery store, with an iffy prospect of reimbursement?

Curaquick opened its first Hy-Vee clinic in March in Columbus, Neb., and has expanded to 10 Hy-Vee stores in the region.


Columbus, Nebraska: the heart of meat packing country and full of the uninsured (and often the undocumented but that's another story...)

I suppose Curaquick is a cheaper option then the other alternative the uninsured have: the emergency room as primary care. And the clinics fill a void.

But this begs the larger question: why do we tolerate the void in the first place?

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