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CVS expanding MinuteClinic primary care services to Aetna members

The services are available to certain individual plan and commercial members in Houston, San Antonio and greater Atlanta, with an eye on future expansion.

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WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Health is offering in-network primary care to Aetna members in selected markets through its MinuteClinics.

Services are available to certain individual plan and commercial members in Houston, San Antonio and greater Atlanta, with an eye on future expansion. There are about 1,100 MinuteClinics across the country, with the walk-in retail health clinics located at CVS pharmacies.

Dr. Creagh Milford, president of retail health for CVS, said that while the national average wait time for a primary care visit is about 26 days, he heard from MinuteClinic patients that they had experienced waits of three months, six months, and even a year before they could see their PCP.

Dr. Creagh Milford

"This is a time of unprecedented change in how people access and receive health care. The focus on reducing costs and improving outcomes, changing consumer expectations, and advances in technology are creating the necessary conditions for innovation and disruption," he added.

"As leaders in our industry, CVS Health is uniquely positioned to transform the delivery of health care. With both the scale and capabilities, CVS Health is driving a superior health care experience by making care more accessible, affordable and convenient for patients," Dr. Milford said. To help improve access to care, CVS Health is offering MinuteClinic as an in-network primary care provider to select Aetna members in Houston, San Antonio and the greater Atlanta area with plans to include more payors and markets in the future."

He said that CVS Health recognizes there is an access problem in the U.S. for primary care. "Many of the patients we see at MinuteClinic either don’t have a primary care provider (PCP) or have not seen one in years. This can lead to increased ER and urgent care utilization as well as gaps in addressing preventive care for our communities."

In these clinics, MinuteClinic nurse practitioners are credentialed as primary care providers, managing end-to-end care with a focus on prevention that includes providing regularly scheduled health maintenance visits, recommending screenings and addressing existing conditions.

 "We have seen strong patient enrollment in the offering and growth to date and the number of patients engaged in the model continues to grow each week.  Historically MinuteClinic has held an industry leading NPS of over 80, which tracks whether our patients would recommend our services, and we are seeing even better results within our Primary Care clinics – an indicator that this is meeting the needs of our patients and they like the model," said Dr. Milford.

 "MinuteClinic, which serves more than five million patients each year and has approximately 1,000 locations nationwide, is one of the largest employers of Advanced Practice Practitioners. MinuteClinic offers most of the services typically found in a primary care office, including wellness and annual exams, chronic condition management and health screenings, as well as labs, diagnostic testing and specialty referrals.  We are building on these capabilities by investing in our teams, expanded services and technology to support continuous care in our clinics. This includes care coordination and referral management, ensuring patients receive comprehensive care where and when they need it," Dr. Milford explained.

"As part of this strategy, CVS Health is working to build an omnichannel, value-based, and integrated health care experience, which will further differentiate the value that our retail health clinics can bring to our patients and local community. Within MinuteClinic, we have upgraded our scheduling system to make it easier for patients to get a same day appointment and we are further integrating our in-person and virtual care services," he concluded.

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