A new analysis shows that, paradoxically, the rise of the retail clinic has meant a small but significant rise in health care spending. Retail clinics accounted for an additional $14 per person per year, according to a Health Affairs study that examined how people insured by Aetna in 22 cities between 2010 and 2012 used health care. That's because more than half of the visits to retail clinics for sinus infections or other relatively minor illnesses were driven new utilization -- in other words, visits that wouldn't have happened if the clinics didn't exist.
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