Healthcare plays by CVS, Walgreens and Amazon will drive more partnerships, tech investment, experts say
CVS, Walgreens and Amazon are ramping up their focus on in-home medical services and primary care and it will cause major disruptions for more traditional brick-and-mortar providers, industry experts say.
Major retailers, including Walmart, are extending their reach deeper into the care continuum and it has major implications for how and where care is delivered and paid for, and by whom.
Earlier this month, drugstore giant CVS announced it would acquire home healthcare company Signify Health for $8 billion, a company sought after by many healthcare and retail companies.
"It's sort of like these companies have been sort of poking around the edges to see what might work and we're finally starting to break through," said Colin Banas, M.D., chief medical officer at DrFirst.
The Signify deal shows that CVS is "putting its muscle" behind its healthcare strategy and broadens its footprint. The move adds in-home care to CVS’s vertically integrated system that already included health insurance, drug management, retail and specialty pharmacy, and urgent care, Banas said.
Signify Health offers analytics and technology to help a network of 10,000 clinicians provide in-home healthcare to 2.5 million patients across the country. CVS will add Signify Health's capabilities and clinician network to its existing portfolio of 40,000 providers,1,100 MinuteClinic locations, 9,000 retail drug stores and the nation’s third-largest health insurer, Aetna. CVS also gains Caravan Health, a company Signify acquired in March, which enables value-based care through its analytics and practice improvement solutions.
