How Major Retailers are Trying to Change How America Consumes Health Care

Tina Reed
AXIOS

Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Dollar General and other big retailers are elbowing their way into health care delivery, pushing a customized consumer experience driven by digital health products.

What's happening: At its core, these companies are pulling together different tech-enabled services — urgent, primary, home and specialty care, pharmacy, and, in some cases, full integration with an insurer.

"Convenience is really front and center to those plays. They are trying to capture the attention of the patient when they already own that consumer," Caroline Hofmann, head of emerging businesses at virtual specialty care company Thirty Madison.
Why it matters: A more user-friendly portal to the health system could lead to more engaged patients and better access to care in underserved areas. It could even yield a sustainable model for profitably offering better care for less money.

But the retailers' forays are prompting growing anti-trust and privacy concerns, as well as fears of further erosion of the doctor-patient relationship once considered central to coordinated care.

What they are saying: "If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered," said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a recent announcement about the company's $3.9 billion acquisition of concierge medicine provider One Medical.

With that deal, which closed last month, Amazon brought in an on-demand virtual care services platform, more than 125 locations and a piece of the Medicare Advantage business.
Driving the news: Yesterday, Best Buy Health launched a hospital-at-home program with North Carolina-based Atrium Health. The tech retailer bought the remote patient monitoring company Current Health in 2021. Best Buy said it will provide patient education, its at-home care platform and devices, and technical support via specially-trained Geek Squad agents.

It came on the heels of Walmart Health announcing last week that it plans to nearly double the footprint of its in-store clinics, which offer primary, behavioral health vision and dental care. In the fall, Walmart also inked a 10-year Medicare Advantage deal with UnitedHealth Group.

In January, CVS Health announced a plan to buy Oak Street Health, a primary care group focused on Medicare patients. The pharmacy giant already owns insurer Aetna, pharmacy benefit manager CVS-Caremark, home health company Signify Health and health care service brands MinuteClinic and HealthHUB.

Also in January, Walgreens-backed primary care company VillageMD, scooped up more primary, specialty and urgent care investments, augmenting plans to open more than 500 full-service doctors' offices in Walgreens locations,
Other companies like Rite Aid, Albertson's, and Dollar General have launched programs in health care delivery.

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