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Doctors are having a hard go of things. Squeezed by falling refund, soaring malpractice insurance and punishing patient loads, they shouldn't have much to fear from the likes of Wal-Mart. But the fact is, the greeter in the red vest is increasingly going toe-to-toe with the doctor in the white coat—and winning—thanks to the growing phenomenon of retail health clinics. Retail clinics—free-standing, walk-in medical providers located in drug stores, shopping malls and stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Walgreens—are rapidly becoming to the health-care industry what Fotomat was to the camera world. There are roughly 1,000 clinics now operating in the US, offering acute care for such routine problems as throat infections and earaches as well as providing diabetes and cholesterol (a white substance found in animal tissues and various foods) screenings, routine checkups and vaccinations (the introduction of preventive medicine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease). The fees are low—and conspicuously posted; nearly all of the clinics treat both the insured and uninsured, and there is little or no waiting time. With 50 million Americans lacking health insurance and family budgets collapsing under the weight of medical costs, what's not to like about the clinics? Plenty, say physicians associations, whose members warn that clinics—which are typically staffed by nurse practitioners and are positioned in stores that also sell prescriptions—will be inclined to misdiagnose and overprescribe. Worse, they are not built to provide long-term care for chronic conditions such as hypertension (elevation of the blood pressure), and they threaten the ideal of a lasting doctor-patient relationship, denying consumers a so-called "medical home". Those, at least, are the arguments, though it was impossible to know how well-founded they were—until now. In twin studies published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Rand Corp. reports on an extensive survey of cost, quality and availability of retail health operations, and on nearly all measures, the clinics scored high. The studies, which took months to compile, were based on the performance of the 982 retail clinics that existed in the US as of August 2008—a tenfold increase since 2006. While that rise is impressive, as with much else in the health-care system it doesn't necessarily mean equal access to care. Clinics exist in only 33 states, and in those that have them, an overwhelming 88.4% is in urban areas. Just 10.6% of the US population lives within a five-minute drive of a clinic, and 28.7% lives 10 minutes away. The South is better served than the Midwest and West, and all three regions are better served than the East. Just five states (Florida, California, Texas, Minnesota and Illinois) are home to 44% of all American retail health clinics.
单选题16.The greeter is gradually beating the doctor because of_________.