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The CCA is a membership organization, and it is supported by membership dues. A representative from each member company sits on the CCA Board of Directors and exercises voting power within the organization.
If you are an operator of convenient care clinics interested in joining the CCA, or an industry vendor or supplier looking for information to get involved, please feel free to contact Anne Lynn, Member Relations Manager, at (215) 985-2515 or anne@ccaclinics.org.
One of the primary concerns that has been raised is that retail clinics will disrupt primary care relationships. What we found is for the majority of people who are going there, there is no primary care relationship to disrupt. These are people who are not being served right now.
Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a researcher at the nonprofit RAND Corp. (as reported by Reuters)
Convenient Care Association Quality and Safety Standards
To ensure the highest quality of patient care and safety in the convenient care setting, the members of the Convenient Care Association (CCA) commit to the following:
1. All providers will be thoroughly credentialed for license, training and experience, with rigorous background checks to verify training and licensing.
2. All CCA Members are committed to monitoring quality on an ongoing basis, including but not limited to:
peer review;
collaborating physician review;
use of evidence-based guidelines;
collecting aggregate data on selected quality and safety outcomes;
collecting patient satisfaction data.
3. All CCA Members build relationships with traditional health care providers and hospitals, and work towards a goal of using EHRs to share patient information and ensure continuity of care.
4. All CCA Members are committed to encouraging patients to establish a relationship with a primary care provider, and to making appropriate and careful referrals for follow-on care and for conditions that are outside of the scope of the clinic’s services.
5. All CCA Members are in compliance with applicable OSHA, CLIA, HIPAA, and ADA standards. All CCA Members follow Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for infection control through hand washing.
6. All CCA Members provide health promotion and disease prevention education to patients. All CCA Members provide written instructions and educational materials to patients upon leaving the clinic.
7. All CCA Members use Electronic Health Records (EHR) to ensure high-quality efficient care. All CCA Members are committed to providing all patients with the opportunity to share health information with other providers electronically or in paper format.
8. All CCA Members provide an environment conducive to quality patient care and meet standards for infection control and safety.
9. All CCA Members will establish emergency response procedures and develop relationships with local emergency response service providers to ensure that patients in need of emergency care can be transported to an appropriate setting as quickly as possible.
10. CCA Members empower patients to make informed choices about their health care. Prices for services provided at Convenient Care Clinics are readily available in a visible place outside of the examination room. Providers discuss what impact, if any, the provision of additional services will have on the ultimate cost to the patient.
The CCA Clinical Advisory Board has developed these recommendations for CCA Quality and Safety Standards to guide the Convenient Care industry. CCA members agree to adhere to the CCA Quality and Safety Standards guidelines which are based on, and are more stringent than, those recommended by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Practitioners and American Academy of Pediatrics.
To further underscore the importance of the Quality and Safety Standards, CCA offers a third party certification for members through Jefferson Medical College. This certifies that CCA members are in compliance with the CCA Quality and Safety Standards guidelines. CCA members have other accountability options including accreditation by The Joint Commission and/or Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care.
All CCA members use standardized protocols and guidelines to enhance the decision making process and assist nurse practitioners (NP), physician assistants (PA) and physicians (MD or DO) in clinical assessments. CCA member clinics' protocols are grounded in evidence-based medicine and guidelines published by respected health care bodies and government entities. All CCA members incorporate rigorous quality assessments into their practice, such as:
Formal chart review by experienced clinicians
Peer-review by clinicians
Medical diagnosis and treatment code auditing
Processes to ensure that all clinicians are certified and credentialed in their specialty by their respective governing bodies
Compliance with state regulations regarding the practice of health care clinicians
One of the primary goals of the CCA is to provide resources to identify standardized guidelines that are evidence-based to ensure the highest quality of care throughout all CCCs. To achieve this goal, the CCA has assembled a Clinical Advisory Board. The purpose of this advisory board is to:
set expectations for members regarding clinical quality;
support CCA members by providing clinical quality resources; and
evaluate the convenient care model through outcomes studies.
