Get a Checkup In Aisle 3

Fueling this growth is the demand for better service. "One thing health care hasn't done as well as other industries," says MinuteClinic chief executive Michael Howe, a former Arby's CEO, "is understand the experience of the consumer." The U.S. spends more than any other country on health care--about 16% of its GDP, or roughly $2 trillion. Yet Americans had more trouble getting timely access to primary care than people living in Australia, New Zealand and Britain (only Canadians had a harder time), according to a Commonwealth Fund survey of five countries with comparable living standards. Just a third of Americans said they get to see their doctor on the day they call in sick. "People want immediate gratification," says Rosenbluth, whose travel empire thrived on a glinting reputation for service. "If they're sick, they don't want to hear about waiting two days for help." To speed things up, Take Care has its customers check in on touch-screen computer terminals.

Entrepreneurs are betting that low prices will draw customers to their clinics, especially since ever more health-care costs are being passed on by insurers and employers through higher deductibles and co-payments. Though urgent-care centers have been around for years, they are neither so affordable nor so quick as the typical miniclinic. Another thing the clinics have going for them: it doesn't cost much to run one. Take Care's clinics require between $250,000 and $350,000 a year to operate, and retailers, eager to boost traffic to their stores and pharmacies, are happy to lease out precious floor space. Typically staffed by nurse practitioners, the miniclinics offer a limited menu of care, including tests, vaccinations and treatment for about two dozen minor ailments, like strep throat. "In the same way that you won't go to an ATM for a small-business loan," says Howe, "you won't go to a MinuteClinic to have a femur reset." And miniclinics pay lower malpractice premiums because their nurses, often aided by software, treat only garden-variety ailments.

But can miniclinics reduce our swelling health-care costs? Judging from markets where they are well established, yes. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota found that for similar conditions, visits to MinuteClinics around the Twin Cities, where a prototype started five years ago, cost half as much as those to doctors' offices. It also found, not surprisingly, that people who pay a larger share of their medical costs are more likely to use the clinics. Minnesota's Blue Cross even waives the co-pay when its employees use MinuteClinics. CIGNA and Aetna, among other insurers, have also begun including miniclinics in their provider networks.

Employers, too, appear to like what they see: workers who save on routine medical care and take less time off from work to get it. Black & Decker's employees get a $10 discount on the co-pay when they use MinuteClinics near its headquarters, in the Baltimore, Md., area. "There are a lot of advantages to [miniclinics]," says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents more than 200 primarily FORTUNE 500 companies. "Employers ought to be looking into them."