MinuteClinic

Several weeks ago, I was feeling downright miserable. I was having heavy chest congestion and coughing up globs of thick, yellow, blood streaked sputum (the medical term for - phlegm, as I found out). Lovely images aren't they? Afraid that I was going to pass something to my dad, I went looking for doctors in the area. And "wham!", doors slam in my face, cyber doors, as I tried to call to make appointments with a doc. As soon as I mentioned the word, uninsured, I was told that many of the docs will not see patients who does not have insurance.

Lucky for me, I had a friend who gave me a good suggestion of going to one of those walk in clinics like the ones that CVS has called MinuteClinic. I logged on immediately and saw that yes, they do have strep throat tests, so off I went. Below are my impressions from my own visit to MinuteClinic.

Unfortunately, not all locations of CVS will have a MinuteClinic for they are probably testing out the MinuteClinic idea. If you are listening CVS, do more advertisements!! Especially online! I tried searching for "walk in clinics" or clinics in general and MinuteClinic never came up! Anyways, I digress. So I walked up to CVS located at X and immediately noticed that there's this little MinuteClinic posted on the CVS window. I walked in and the MinuteClinic is located next to the Pharmacy area. There's a little room with a check-in counter outside of it. Everything is computerized. The check-in kiosk prompts the patient for a series of general information, very similar to the ones you would fill out at a doctor's office. Name, addres, phone number, reason for visit, and so and so. For those that are not computer literate, I am sure the MinuteClinic doctor will be able to help, but overall the process is pretty simple and easy. When you are done registering yourself, your name is placed in a queue.

The entire registration process took less than 5 minutes for me. If you are bad at typing, it'll probably take you a little longer.

I was the only person there at the time, so I was first in line. No wait time at all.

The doc greeted me into his office. A 9x9 little space, very clean, very much like the one you usually sit in while you wait for your family doctor, except everything is spaced a bit tighter. As I walk in, to my left is a long counter where supplies are kept. The immediate left corner is occupied by the doctor with his computer, printer, and Visa machine. There are couple of chairs in the room, no lounge bed to lie on. The room looks neat and clean.

Next, the doc closes the door for patient privacy. With the door closed, you forget that you are actually inside a CVS store. Instead it looks just like many of the 'regular' doctors office, only much newer. Yes, you know what I am talking about.

The doc pulled up my info on the computer and starts to take some preliminary history and to understand what's ailing me. I explained I have this horrible chest congestion and cough for almost a week now and that my main concern is that I might have strep throat. He listened carefully and took my blood pressure, looked into my ears, eyes and throat. The doc said he doesn't think I have strep instead that I probably just have an upper respiratory infection and the cough is due to the post nasal drip that I have which is irritating my throat thus making me cough. But course, he went and explained the two different types of diagnostic tests available to
test for strep and went to explain both the quick strep test and the strep culture. I opted to do both. The quick strep test was easy, swab the back of my throat and 5 minutes later it showed that I was negative for strep. But being the anal person that I am, I went for another swab to be sent out for the culture.

I asked some questions about strep, and sinus infection and bronchitis. The doctor patiently answered my questions.

Towards the end of my visit, the doc printed out some prescriptions for me to take to dry up the post nasal drip and to help with thinning out the phlegm.

I paid for my office visit using a credit card. My prescriptions, medical history, info on strep throat and upper respiratory infection were printed out from the in room printer.

40 minutes and $99 dollars later I was out of the MinuteClinic, breathing a little bit easier now knowing I don't have strep.

So overall for me, MinuteClinic is a great thing. Good for those non-threatening ailments and definitely beats going to ER for a simple test like strep. I hope that United States will expand on walk-in clinics especially since this is about the only way the uninsured or those paying out of pocket will be able to see a doctor within a reasonable amount of time without going to an ER for simple illnesses.

And hopefully, these types of clinics will be expanded so they can take on a variety of cases that might require uses of X-Rays.