From DSC:<\/span><\/em> <\/p>\n The Disappearing Doctor: How Mega-Mergers Are Changing the Business of Medical Care<\/strong><\/a> — from nytimes.com by Reed Ableson and Julie Creswell Excerpt:<\/em><\/p>\n Is the doctor in?<\/p>\n In this new medical age of urgent care centers and retail clinics, that\u2019s not a simple question. Nor does it have a simple answer, as primary care doctors become increasingly scarce.<\/p>\n \u201cYou call the doctor\u2019s office to book an appointment,\u201d said Matt Feit, a 45-year-old screenwriter in Los Angeles who visited an urgent care center eight times last year. \u201cThey\u2019re only open Monday through Friday from these hours to those hours, and, generally, they\u2019re not the hours I\u2019m free or I have to take time off from my job.<\/p>\n \u201cI can go just about anytime to urgent care,\u201d he continued, \u201cand my co-pay is exactly the same as if I went to my primary doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s one reason big players like CVS Health, the drugstore chain<\/a>, and most recently Walmart<\/a>, the giant retailer, are eyeing deals with Aetna and Humana, respectively, to use their stores to deliver medical care.<\/p>\n People are flocking to retail clinics and urgent care centers in strip malls or shopping centers, where simple health needs can usually be tended to by health professionals like nurse practitioners or physician assistants much more cheaply than in a doctor\u2019s office. Some 12,000 are already scattered across the country, according to Merchant Medicine, a consulting firm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From DSC: What can higher ed learn from this? Eventually, people will seek alternatives if what’s being offered isn’t acceptable to them anymore. The Disappearing Doctor: How Mega-Mergers Are Changing the Business of Medical Care — from nytimes.com by Reed Ableson and Julie Creswell Big corporations \u2014 giant retailers and health insurance companies \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,112,57,159,72,143,37,36,35,359,3,419,510,239,20,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colleges","category-corporate-business-world","category-cost-of-getting-a-degree","category-dangers-of-the-status-quo","category-daniel-s-christian","category-disruption","category-future","category-future-of-higher-education","category-game-changing-environment","category-health","category-higher-education","category-ideas-teaching","category-learning-from-the-living-class-room","category-new-business-models","category-strategy","category-universities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63134,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63129\/revisions\/63134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhat can higher ed learn from this? Eventually, people will seek alternatives if what’s being offered isn’t acceptable to them anymore.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
\nBig corporations \u2014 giant retailers and health insurance companies \u2014 are teaming up to become your doctor.<\/em><\/p>\n