Bonus Clip: Dr. Tom Lee Talks About Why Retail Clinics Are Not Doing So Well, in His Opinion

This short bonus episode is a side bar conversation with Dr. Tom Lee discussing why retail clinics are struggling with Dr. Tom Lee. 

They explore the shortcomings of retail clinics in providing longitudinal primary care, despite their convenience for minor urgent care and vaccinations. 

Dr. Lee emphasizes that true primary care requires consistent, long-term patient relationships and complex management which many retail clinics fail to deliver. They also discuss the economic challenges of running such clinics and the importance of defining primary care's value proposition correctly.

=== LINKS ===
🔗  Show Notes with all mentioned links:  
https://cc-lnk.com/Bonus445

✉️  Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter:
https://relentlesshealthvalue.com/join-the-relentless-tribe

🫙  Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar:
https://relentlesshealthvalue.com/join-the-relentless-tribe

🎤  Listen on Apple Podcasts  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/feed/id892082003?ls=1

🎤  Listen on Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/show/6UjgzI7bScDrWvZEk2f46b

📺  Subscribe to our YouTube channel   https://www.youtube.com/@RelentlessHealthValue

=== CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===
✭ LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/company/relentless-health-value/
✭ Threads  https://www.threads.net/@relentlesshealthvalue/
✭ Bluesky   https://bsky.app/profile/relentleshealth.bsky.social
✭ X   https://twitter.com/relentleshealth/

01:01 Why have retail clinics failed in being longitudinal primary care destinations?

01:32 Why access is an important factor, but not the only one.

02:10 Access vs. longitudinal care.

02:47 The challenges of operating a service operation within primary care.

03:47 What is a longitudinal primary care destination and why does it matter?

04:15 How is primary care not delivering on its promise?

04:27 How is the “promise of primary care” different than an urgent care or MinuteClinic?

Recent past interviews:

Click a guest’s name for their latest RHV episode!

Dr Benjamin Schwartz, Dr John Lee (Take Two: EP438), Kimberly Carleson, Ann Lewandowski (Summer Shorts), Andreas Mang and Jon Camire (EP479), Justin Leader (Take Two: EP433), Andreas Mang and Jon Camire (EP478), Stacey Richter (EP477), Charles Green (Bonus Episode), Ann Lewandowski,

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Take two.
Sidebar.
"Dr. Tom Lee Talks About Why RetailClinics Are Not Doing So Well in His
Opinion." Here's a short clip from myconversation with Dr. Tom Lee a year ago.
American Healthcare Entrepreneurs andExecutives, You Want to Know, Talking.

(00:26):
Relentlessly Seeking Value.
I clipped out this five minute sortof sidebar conversation with Dr.
Tom Lee when I was speaking with himlast summer that I thought you might
be interested in listening to byitself, because it is a bit of a,
like I said, a sort of a tangent.
And again, given all of the conversationsthat we've been having lately about

(00:49):
trust and mission and margin, I thinkthe points that Dr. Tom Lee makes in the
conversation is all the more relevant.
My name is Stacey Richter.
This podcast is sponsoredby Aventria Health Group.
I'm definitely gonna loop back on someof other ways one becomes an enlightened
leader who has a value-based mindset.

(01:09):
But before I do reconcile for me, youknow, the hypothesis that Walmart had and
Walgreens and some of these other, let'sput a clinic inside a place our customers
slash patients slash members already are.
That is gonna be great access.
Right?
Like they're already in theWalmart so they can just pop by
and get some medical service.

(01:32):
And you said this, you saidaccess is going to be an important
metric, but not the only one.
Talk a little bit about theexperience maybe that some of these
clinics found out the hard way.
Well, I mean, let's call it the retailclinics, just broadly speaking, which
has, you know, been a 20 plus yearconcept in general and has failed to
what we call really, truly delivergreat longitudinal primary care.

(01:56):
They've been convenient vaccineshops and you know, what I call
minor urgent care type of clinics,but very few have really become
longitudinal primary care destinations.
And that's the key difference, right?
Access is different from somebodywho knows me and can manage my care
longitudinally as a true primary careprovider, most of the retail clinics

(02:19):
are really servicing, as you know, otherversions of urgent care, which there
are plenty of, with plenty of access.
And so in the absence of what I calllongitudinal access, there are convenient
options out there that are transactionalif need be, right, including the ER.
They aren't the best places toget your care necessarily, but

(02:39):
those are other access points.
And so the second point is reallywho is on the other side and what are
they doing for me at this location?
There's a separate issue of just theeconomics of this when it's not your core
business to run a service operation, it'shard to stand up a service operation.
And I think people don't realize thatservice operations aren't a second job.

(03:01):
They should be your first job.
And I think people tended tounderestimate, and I think still do how
hard it is to run a service operation,particularly within primary care.
Yeah, I mean I have heard that inWalmart, just to echo at this point,
they were looking at the square footagethe clinic was taking up and deciding
they could make more money sellingtires in that same square footage.
So there's all kinds of issuesthat were going on there.

(03:24):
But from what I'm hearing, if we'rethinking about what is a value focused
mindset, that one of the first things tofigure out, like what are you trying to
accomplish and what does that look like?
And you're highlighting the idea of accessas a proxy for some performance metric.
But you also need to be reallycontemplative of how do you become
a longitudinal care destination.
It sounds like that's kind of like highon your list to really think through

(03:47):
what is a longitudinal care destination.
What does that look like?
I mean, probably relationships, right?
That seems to be a thing in and of itselfthat you sort of have to get right?
Yeah.
I mean, it all depends on how youdefine primary care and for what reason.
The reason why people like primarycare conceptually is in theory,
again, it offers a better way toget value for your dollar in care.

(04:12):
That's true if primary careis delivering on its promise.
Today, it's not delivering on itspromise because it's been obviously low
reimbursement and high complexity overheadhave really diminished the capabilities
of most primary care offices in general.
But if you were to say, Hey, primarycare's purpose is to be a general
place of care, longitudinally,to handle most issues, that's

(04:36):
the promise of primary care.
I think that's very different thana MinuteClinic or some transactional
system that's focused on convenience.
And so that second dimensionthat we talked about after access
is important, and that is wherethe economics really struggle.
You know, open access is somewhatof an operational problem
that doesn't cost dollars.

(04:56):
That just costs management discipline.
You know, open access is a concept that'sbeen based around for 20, 30 plus years.
You just have to execute it.
Not many organizationsexecute open access.
The second dimension is running alongitudinal primary care practice
in a cost efficient manner giventhe reimbursement architecture.
And that is challenging and what youinclude in the scope of primary care, not

(05:18):
just kind of the label, but the actualcontent matters and how you do it matters.
And so that's where the servicecomplexity starts to really take hold.
And I think people tend to notreally understand what that means
in a traditional, uh, environment.
Hi, this is Tom Nash, editor and producerof the Relentless Health Value Podcast.
I bet you're wondering, how canI help Relentless Health Value?

(05:40):
Well, that's pretty easy.
Have you signed up for the newsletter?
The newsletter is great.
It tells you when eachepisode's coming out.
It gives you an introduction to theepisode with all the mention links.
And a way to click throughand listen to the podcast.
But there's more ways to help.
You can always go over to LinkedIn.
Are you following the page?
You should be.
There's great conversationseach week on all the episodes.

(06:01):
So go to LinkedIn, find the RelentlessHealth Value page and follow us.
Have you ever left a review forus on Apple Podcast or Spotify?
That would help greatly?
While you're doing that, be sureyou're following the podcast so
you get notified each week insideof Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Okay, so you've done allthose things already.
That's great.
Another thing you could do, youcould head over to our website

(06:22):
and donate to the Tip Jar.
Maybe become a sustaining member.
In many ways, RelentlessHealth runs like an unofficial
nonprofit, a very, very nonprofit.
So anything that you givewould help us pay the bills.
Thanks so much for listening.