By Greg Slabodkin October 24, 2019, 1:48 a.m. EDT
A telemedicine service from MinuteClinic—CVS
Health’s retail medical clinic—is providing access to care 24 hours a day,
seven days a week to consumers in 32 states and the District of Columbia.
Launched last year, the telehealth
service—called MinuteClinic Video Visits—costs $59 and is for patients ages two
years and up who are seeking treatment for a minor illness, injury or skin
conditions.
To date, thousands of MinuteClinic Video
Visits have been conducted—more than a third of which have taken place outside
of traditional clinic hours, according to the company.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Cleveland Clinic’s
Medical Innovation Summit, MinuteClinic President Sharon Vitti said CVS Health
is “focusing in on the consumer” and “making things easy for them” while “being
impactful with health outcomes and the cost of care.”
MinuteClinic has more than 1,100 retail
medical clinics across the country. The company contends that users can access
the video service from their mobile device or computer and receive the same
quality of care they would receive at MinuteClinic locations in certain CVS
Pharmacy and Target stores.
“When requesting a video visit, each patient
will complete a health questionnaire and be matched to a board-certified
healthcare provider licensed in their state,” according to CVS Health. “Prior
to the start of the video-enabled visit, the provider will review the completed
questionnaire together with the patient’s medical history.”
The service, which leverages telehealth vendor
Teladoc’s technology platform, includes an assessment of a patient’s condition
by a provider who determines the appropriate course of treatment using
evidence-based clinical care guidelines—and, if necessary, refers the patient
for follow-up in person care or testing.
MinuteClinic Video Visits can be paid for by
credit or debit card, as well as flexible spending account and health savings
account cards—with plans to add insurance coverage over the next few months.
Vitti, who is also senior vice president of
CVS Health, noted that the company plans to roll out 1,500 “HealthHUBs” to its
stores by the end of 2021. HealthHUBs, which were piloted in Houston earlier
this year, offer a broader range of healthcare services including digital and
on-demand health tools.
She said the HealthHUBs are “part of our
forward-thinking strategy to become more involved in healthcare” and are “a way
of reusing or reframing” the CVS retail space for the nearly 5 million
consumers who come into its stores each day.
“We’re taking 25 percent of our store and
converting it into something that has more of a health orientation,” added
Vitt, including products focused on wellness and self- care.
She said wellness rooms in the HealthHUBs for
CVS professionals and community partners will host group events, including
health classes and nutritional seminars. Also, learning tables will be set up
to include iPads for customers to explore health and wellness apps, as well as
shop for products on the CVS website.
“We’re trying to develop services that either
bridge gaps that haven’t been filled or that complement what an integrated
delivery system or provider would do,” concluded Vitti, who pointed out that
patients will need services beyond the HealthHUBs and MinuteClinic Video
Visits, which are not the “end-all” solutions for healthcare.
“We see it as a bi-directional ecosystem,” she
added. “We couldn’t do it by ourselves. We need to do it in collaboration with
other providers and integrated delivery systems.”
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