Retailers Keep Casting a Wider Net to Draw Primary Care and Urgent Care Business

Chain drugstores continue to invest heavily in their quest to capture more primary care and urgent care patients. As JUCM News readers know, only a month or so ago CVS announced it was buying Signify, a home healthcare provider, for roughly $8 million. That was just the appetizer course, though, as it’s been revealed the company is investing $100 million in Carbon Health, a primary care and urgent care company. At the same time, Becker’s Hospital Review and other sources report that it’s negotiating to buy Medicare Advantage provider Oak Street Health. Walgreens has already staked a claim in that market with VillageMD. They also bought into the primary and urgent care markets with their acquisition of Summit Health-CityMD. CVS’s investment in Carbon capped a wild ride for the latter, as that company recently announced it was laying off an additional 200 employees after letting 250 people go in 2022 (all told, more than a quarter of its peak headcount). One of the key attributes of the CVS deal is that the retailer will gain use of Carbon’s electronic health records system.