Convenient care clinics: opposition, opportunity, and the path to health system integration

As the terrain of the healthcare system grows increasingly more difficult to navigate for healthcare professionals, health systems, and consumers, the country is forced to seek new ways to align our healthcare needs with our healthcare capacity. In its quest to meet this challenge, the healthcare system--already besieged with rising costs and diminishing reimbursements, rapidly changing demographics, heightened demands for pricing, transparency demands, stringent regulations, and rising consumer expectations--is forced to examine new healthcare business models. One of the new healthcare business models, the convenient care clinic (CCC), has spurred great debate among healthcare professionals. Viewed as a threat that compromises quality by some and a viable business model that delivers much-needed basic healthcare services by others, convenient care clinics continue to multiply at a rapid pace. This article examines traditional healthcare delivery systems and ways that CCCs can begin to bridge the widening gap between healthcare and consumers.