This post first appeared on the Practice Fusion blog.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is going ahead with plans to apply its new “Red Flag Rule” regulations to physician practices beginning August 1.

According to the Rule, practices that accept health insurance or permit patients to pay in installment plans must implement written policies and procedures that protect against identity theft before that date, or risk being docked up to $2,500 for each “knowing violation.”

Medical identity theft occurs when a perpetrator uses someone’s identifying information, such as name, Social Security number, insurance coverage data or credit card number, without that person’s knowledge or consent, to obtain or make false claims for medical products or services.

A “red flag” is a pattern, practice or specific account or record activity that indicates possible identity theft.

The American Medical Association has objected to the FTC’s claim that a physician is a “creditor” and hence subject to the Red Flag Rule. It is attempting to delay or prevent implementation of the Rule to physician practices.

The AMA has nevertheless prepared a guidance document and sample policies for physician practices. These can be found here and here.

Contact your local Board of Registration in Medicine or the AMA for more information.

Many have proposed that retail clinics—which provide health services from a few square feet carved out of grocery stores and pharmacies—could represent a means by which  the poor and uninsured can access health care.

It turns out however, that few such clinics exist in poor neighborhoods.

According to a recent study, retail clinics follow the money to affluent suburbs, just like most businesses and for that matter, most health care providers.

Craig Pollock and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania matched the zip codes of 930 retail clinics with US census data describing the income and racial makeup of these areas.

They found that only 123 clinics had been set up in areas defined by the Feds as medically underserved. Regions featuring at least one retail clinic had a lower percentage of Hispanic and Black residents, lower family income, and higher rates of home ownership.

The write-up appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Many people have promoted retail clinics as a cure for access to care for the underserved,” the University of Pittsburgh’s Ateev Mehrotra told the Washington Times. “These findings show that’s unlikely to happen.”

Pollock’s group concluded that financial incentives may be required to lure the clinics to underserved areas. 

Retail clinics feature customer-friendly hours of operation and are usually staffed by nurse practitioners. They give immunizations and treat minor conditions such as skin rashes and upper respiratory illnesses. The services typically run between $40 and $75. Prices are usually posted.

Some, but not all retail clinics accept insurance.  CVS Caremark and Walgreens are the largest operators of retail clinics. Together, they run about 1,200 of them. States with the highest numbers of retail clinics are Florida (with 147), then Texas, California and Illinois.