Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Retail Clinic Industry Adjusting

Here's a case where a headline can set up expectations. Today's Wall Street Journal says that Health Clinics Inside Stores Likely to Slow Their Growth (subscription required). The headline set me up to expect a gloom-and-doom piece about these businesses, which offer walk-in medical consultations inside Wal-Mart and other stores.

Instead, what we learn is that clinic owners have gotten ahead of themselves, with some operators closing clinics and others pulling back on expansion plans. Given the relatively new status of these clinics, none of this is surprising.

"In recent months," the Journal says, 69 clinics in 15 states have shut their doors.

CVS, meanwhile, has scaled back its plan to open new clinics--from 200 new MinuteClinics to "only" 100 ones. On the other hand, Walgreens expects to stay on course to open over 100 Take Care clinics, doubling the number of retail clinics it operates.

Marketing gets a bad wrap from the public in general, but this story is one example of how marketing can be useful: It introduces people to a new concept, or perhaps an old one rediscovered.

The effort has been successful. Three years ago there were 125 retail health clinics. Today there are 963.