Walgreens: Look For More Doctor Partnerships In 2020

Bruce Japsen Senior Contributor Jan 15, 2020, 05:30pm

Walgreens Boots Alliance said Wednesday it is working on more ways to partner with physicians and hinted at some new deals with doctors in the works for 2020.

Already, Walgreens has a partnership with Humana and its Partners in Primary Care Centers inside two Walgreens stores in the Kansas City area and a third in Anderson, South Carolina. The drugstore chain also is developing clinics next to its pharmacies with Chicago-based startup VillageMD, which operates primary care clinics that have contracts with physicians. And the company is working with UnitedHealth Group’s MedExpress urgent care business on closer ties with physicians.

“We will need multiple partnerships in this area,” Walgreens global chief financial officer James Kehoe said at the JPMorgan Healthcare conference, which was webcast Wednesday afternoon. “The doctor is the key individual.”

Walgreens developing partnerships with doctor-staffed clinics is in contrast to rival CVS Health’s primary care services strategy that includes MinuteClinics, which are staffed by nurse practitioners in more than 1,100 stores. CVS is also rolling out a new “HealthHub” format that will be in 1,500 stores by the end of 2021.

But Walgreens has unwound its retail health clinics staffed by nurse practitioners and sees the physician relationship as more important for its developing primary care strategy, which for now is largely in the testing stages.

Neither Kehoe or Alex Gourlay, Walgreens co-chief operating officer, would say when the Humana or VillageMD partnerships would be expanded to other markets, saying that the performance of each effort needs to be more closely evaluated, executives said Wednesday in an interview with JPMorgan analyst Lisa Gill at the bank’s healthcare conference in San Francisco.

In the VillageMD relationship, 2,500-square-foot clinics are being located next to five Walgreens stores that will be open in the Houston area by the end of February and are called “Village Medical at Walgreens.” And the Walgreens-Humana Partners in Primary Care relationship is a joint venture developing senior health clinics that treat patients covered by the insurer’s Medicare Advantage plans.

“It will take time to see the volume grow,” Gourlay said.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2020/01/15/walgreens-look-for-more-doctor-partnerships-in-2020/#2ab36c057d89