UPDATE: Healthcare changing channels

This site has offered a number of stories about the changing face of medicine (see the Healthcare set by clicking here).  Today’s Marketing Daily features a story about the growth of in-store clinical services at chains like Walgreen’s, CVS and Riteaid.  Click here to see the article.

Implications:  This is interesting not only to the (previous) providers of vaccines and other routine treatments.  It should be interesting, too, to those health care providers that rely on traditional physicians for their referrals. 

If you run a specialty orthopedics office, a strip-mall MRI facility or other specialized healthcare office… could your referrals be coming from a different source than they were five years ago?  If revenue is up more than 80% at the chain quick-clinics since 2005—as stated by the Marketing Daily story—one must assume that at least some diagnoses will increasingly occur outside the conventional doctor’s office.

Perhaps some specialty healthcare providers will have to take a more retail approach, with regard to patient marketing; doing so could help make-up for referrals which might not be as likely to travel through traditional channels.

Mike Anderson, for the Elm Street Economics consumer trends blog. A service of The Center for Sales Strategy, Inc.