Wild & Wooly

The weather here is taking a turn for the....NOTHING! This Lizard lives in the Gulf Coast, so we're starting to batten the hatches (again), clear off the back porch (again) and pull out the emergency preparations policies at work (again). I swear...it's like we just did this like 2 weeks ago. Oh wait, we did!

WebMD had this today:

Retail Clinics Catch On in U.S.: "Who Uses Retail Clinics?

Among the findings:

* Men and women seem to equally go to retail clinics.
* 18- to 44-year-olds made twice as many visits to retails clinics (43% compared with 23%) as visits to their primary care physician.
* The youngest and oldest patients are least likely to visit retail clinics and more likely to go to a doctor's office or emergency room.
* In 39% of visits, people who went to a retail clinic reported having a primary care physician. (That's compared to 80% of people nationwide who say they have a personal doctor.)
* 2.3% of visits to a retail clinic were triaged to an emergency room or a doctor's office.

'These clinics appear to attract patients who are not routine users of the current health care system,' Mehrotra says in a news release. 'For these patients, the convenience offered by retail clinics may be more important than the continuity provided by a personal physician.'"

I have 2 family members who have used this type of clinic service, and they were both extremely happy with the efficiency, speed, and demeanor of the staff there. They both had a positive experience with the prescriptions being written and available for pickup within 30 minutes. Wow! All for $59.00 (plus cost of prescription). They didn't have to wait for 2+ hrs in their doctor's office for snarky nurses to make them sit half naked on a paper-towel-draped table. Definitely something I will keep in mind next time I decide to get antibiotics or such.

Go Astros!