Growth has been very modest, which is not a surprise.

If physician offices have trouble staying afloat, repackaging office-based care and putting it in a Wal-Mart or drug store isn’t going to automatically make a broken business model profitable.

This obvious fact seems to have taken some by surprise, as a study notes that “retail clinics have turned out to be more complex and costly to operate than expected.”

Retail clinics however, has made physician offices more competitive, with some adding more hours and increasing same-day appointments.

Increasing physician access and improving patient service are keys to primary care survival, and if anything, the proliferation of retail clinics provided a stark reminder of that.