WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Come for the Q-Tips, stay for a throat culture.

Rite Aid drugstores plan to open at least four in-store health clinics beginning this summer, under a partnership announced Tuesday with MedStar Health and the D.C.-based Consumer Health Services.

MedStar will oversee the medical direction of the clinics, which will provide treatment for common ailments, minor injuries and wellness screenings and vaccinations, according to Eric Wagner, a senior vice president for MedStar. CHS, a physician staffing company, will run the day-to-day operations.

“It will be somewhere between a freestanding urgent care center and what you get in a physician’s office,” Wagner said.

Wagner said the move will help MedStar capture a new source of customers.

“As we looked at this marketplace of retail clinics, we saw that it is appealing to a segment of our patients,” Wagner said. “I think the trouble we have had historically with it is a lack of patient involvement.”

Retail clinics already exist locally in locations such as CVS, and D.C-based Revolution Health is an investor in RediClinic, which has set up shop in Wal-Marts and Walgreen’s throughout the country.

But the MedStar clinics are unique in that they are being staffed by physicians rather than nurse practitioners. Rite Aid already has clinics in California and Idaho, spokeswoman Cheryl Slavinsky. She said the company does not release statistics related to how many patients have visited them.

MedStar will start with two clinics in the District and two in Baltimore, though the company has not announced the exact locations, Wagner said.

The number of such clinics grew from 250 at the beginning of 2007 to 800 by the end of last year, according to Tine Hansen-Turton, executive director of the Convenient Care Association. The Philadelphia group is projecting between 1,500 and 1,600 by the end of 2008.

“Customers really like the convenience,” she said.

melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com