The LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans wants to remedy the condition of its primary care availability.
In an attempt to expand the reach of their primary care, the LSU Healthcare Network has entered into partnerships with Walgreens and CVS walk-in clinics across New Orleans. The announcement came in a Jan. 28 news release.
Patients will now be able to use the CVS Minute Clinics and Walgreens equivalents after hours and on weekends when network doctors are not available.
“It’s a much lower cost way of providing care after regular office hours rather than going to an emergency room,” said LSU Healthcare Network CEO Cathi Fontenot.
Health Sciences Center Chancellor Larry Hollier said part of its goal is to increase primary care for all community members.
“Part of our strategic study has shown that LSU Health in New Orleans is not really recognized as taking care of the general population. We take care of the poor folks,” Hollier said at the January Board of Supervisors meeting. “We need to expand in primary care because we don’t have a large base in that.”
Keeping their offices open for longer hours was not feasible, Hollier said, because of the inability to recruit physicians as well as the overhead costs.
At the clinics, patients will have access to a licensed nurse practitioner seven days a week and will be charged a flat rate, Hollier said.
The pharmacies will collaborate with the health network so a patient’s data from an after hours visit can be shared with his or her primary care physician.
“We have this relationship with CVS where our patients will be told that they can go and be seen there if they have an issue on the weekend because their data will then be transferred to our physicians, our medical records,” Hollier said. “We will have an interface with their electronic health records.”
From the clinics, patients will also be referred to network specialists if the need arises. The network includes specialists in fields ranging from allergy to cardiology to orthopedics.
Hollier said the partnerships with Walgreens and CVS will help the center meet its goal of becoming a “medical home” for patients, while also bringing foot traffic into the pharmacies.
Hollier said he hopes the partnerships will not only help expand services for existing patients but also connect community members without a primary care physician to their network.
About 25 percent of people who visit walk-in clinics do not have a doctor they see regularly, Hollier said. And while overall office visits have increased, Hollier sees the partnerships as an opportunity to connect with a new sector of the community.
Fontenot said the partnerships were in the first stages, but talks could expand to offer services in the Baton Rouge area.
“This is the beginning. This is a toe in the water,” Fontenot said. “The beginning of the relationship is primarily here in New Orleans, but it may be expanded.”
The relationship could also be expanded to offer discounts or special services for students, Fontenot said.
The co-branding will be beneficial from a business aspect as well, LSU President F. King Alexander said at the January Board of Supervisors meeting.
“Don’t be alarmed if you see the LSU logo at the Minute Clinics in CVS,” Alexander said. “That’s a partnership that we have with them, and I have been reassured that we don’t have any liability associated with that, but we do get the marketing value of it and the partnership certainly helps CVS and it helps LSU.”