Is Getting a Tank Full of Gas and a Strep Test in the Same Place a Good Thing? Maybe So

A few months ago, JUCM News told you about QuikTrip’s rollout of urgent care centers (branded under the name MedWise) leveraging the real estate, marketing, and branding expertise of its gas stations. Apparently word is getting out, as an article on the initiative published by KFF Health News recently has been picked up by USA Today and various metropolitan newspapers around the country. Urgent Care Association CEO and regular JUCM contributor Lou Ellen Horwitz is quoted extensively throughout the piece—confessing that she was skeptical about QuikTrip’s plans at first, but didn’t take long to warm to the idea. Easy-to-find locations, relying on walk-in customers, and accepting an array of payment methods are just a few commonalities that could explain why it’s working, so far. In the KFF Health News piece, MedWise Executive Director Brice Habeck notes that access and convenience are, in fact, the essential qualities that made the company consider the idea to begin with. He also points out that it really wasn’t much of a stretch in the company’s mind, as  QuikTrip had been working with third parties to provide primary care to its own employees for years before launching the MedWise initiative. MedWise now has 12 clinics in the Tulsa, OK area and is a UCA member organization. At the very least, the relative, early success of MedWise shows there may be no limits as to where patients are willing to get healthcare, as long as they can count on the quality.