A Mobile Clinic Parked At A Dollar General? It Says A Lot About Rural Health Care: NPR 🚐 [View all]
- NPR, Oct. 5, 2023. - Ed.
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — On a hot July morning, customers at the Dollar General along a two-lane highway northwest of Nashville didn't seem to notice signs of the chain store's foray into mobile health care. A woman lifted a child from the back of an SUV and walked into the store. A dog barked from a black pickup truck before its owner returned with cases of soda. Another woman checked her hair in a convertible's rearview mirror before shopping.
Without a passing glance , each went right by a sign exclaiming "Quick, Easy Health Visits," with an image of a mobile clinic.
Just after 10 a.m., registered nurse Kimberly French arrived to work at the DocGo mobile clinic parked in the store's lot. She checked her schedule. "We don't have any appointments so far today, but that could change," French says. "Last night we didn't have any appointments and three or four people showed up all at one time."
Dollar General, the nation's largest retailer by number of stores, with more than 19,000 locations, partnered with a New York-based mobile medical services company called DocGo to test whether it could draw more customers and tackle persistent health inequities. Deploying mobile clinics to fill care gaps in underserved areas isn't a new idea. But pairing them with Dollar General's ubiquitous small-town presence has been heralded by investment analysts and some rural health experts as a way to ease the rural health care drought.
Where doctors are scarce: Dollar General's latest annual report notes that about 80% of the company's stores are in towns with populations of fewer than 20,000 — precisely where medical professionals are scarce. Catering to those who want urgent or primary care, the mobile clinics take private insurance as well as Medicaid and Medicare. The company's website says DocGo's self-pay rates start at $69 for patients without insurance or who are out of network..
On the ground in Tennessee, primary care doctors and patients are skeptical...🥼
More, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/05/1202188258/dollar-general-rural-primary-care-docgo
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