CVS Health’s top executive said its stores are
focused on offering “80% of what a primary care physician can treat” as it
rolls out its new HealthHub format and “zero” and “low copays” for certain
Aetna health plan members using CVS services.
Speaking at the JPMorgan
Chase Healthcare conference Tuesday, CVS chief executive Larry
Merlo said the company remains on track to have 1,500 HealthHUBs operating by
the end of 2021. This comes after the first 50 HealthHubs opened last year in
four markets: Houston, Atlanta, Tampa and the market that includes Philadelphia
and southern New Jersey.
“We now have about 600 HealthHUBs scheduled
for this year, 1500 by the end of 2021,” Merlo told JPMorgan analyst Lisa Gill
in an interview webcast from the bank’s annual healthcare meeting in San
Francisco.
“We are confident we are on the right path to
creating the most consumer-centric healthcare company,” Merlo said. “We have
completed a tremendous amount of work over the last 13 months.”
CVS in December of 2018 closed on its
acquisition of Aetna, the nation’s third-largest health insurer with more than
20 million customers. As a larger healthcare company that is benefitting from
Aetna health plan members, CVS is dedicating more than 20% of its stores to
health services that include new durable medical equipment, supplies and
various new product and service combinations.
CVS executives say the HealthHubs will tend to
be rolled out where there are a large concentration of Aetna members. “There is
a direct link between the ZIP codes associated with Aetna membership and the
locations of these HealthHUBs,” Merlo said.
CVS is rolling out new health plans this year
that feature “zero” and “low copayments” for Aetna members who use CVS
HealthHubs and the drugstore services, CVS executives on the JPMorgan panel
with Merlo said Tuesday.
Though not all of CVS’ more than 9,800 retail
locations will convert to HealthHub locations, Merlo said CVS is adding new
healthcare services and new personal care items at all of its stores as well as
additional services at its MinuteClinics.
The move to add new healthcare services comes
as rival retailers in the healthcare space like Walgreens Boots Alliance and
Walmart look to fill the emptying space in their brick and mortar stores in the
face of changing consumer shopping habits driven by online retail giant Amazon
and others.
But Merlo told JPMorgan’s Gill “there is a
physical role for bricks and mortar.” As new healthcare services and personal
items have been added to the HealthHubs, CVS is seeing more foot traffic and
more purchases. “We see the HealthHubs has an evolution of the drugstore,”
Merlo said. “We talk about the need to make healthcare local.”
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