Wall Street seeks big bang from urgent care

Urgent care has mushroomed into an estimated $14.5 billion business, as investors try to profit from changes in health care, reports The New York Times. Meanwhile, beginning in September, patients will be able to check whether their doctors have accepted gifts, payments and other services worth $10 or more from drug and medical device makers and suppliers.

The New York Times: Race Is On To Profit From Rise Of Urgent Care
For more than eight hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, an assortment of ailments is on display at the tidy medical clinic on Main Avenue here. But all of the patients have one thing in common: No one is being treated at a traditional doctor's office or emergency room. Instead, they have turned to one of the fastest-growing segments of American health care: urgent care, a common category of walk-in clinics with uncommon interest from Wall Street (Creswell, 7/9).

The Associated Press: Who Pays Your Doc? Coming Soon To A Site Near You
When many of us have a medical appointment we're concerned about our finances: how much will we owe out-of-pocket? What's our co-pay? But next time, you may also want to ask your doctors about their financial situation. That's because nearly 95 percent of U.S. physicians accept gifts, meals, payments, travel and other services from companies that make the drugs and medical products they prescribe, according to the New England Journal of Medicine ... for the first time, patients will soon be able draw back the curtain (7/9).